Has Google gone insane as GMail goes back to beta?
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Blog, email, Google on
There was a huge fanfare of media attention yesterday as Google proudly announced that one of the longest beta tests in software history, well it certainly felt like that, had finally come to end. Yes, the GMail webmail application that was launched on April Fool’s Day way back in 2004 has finally emerged from it’s beta status. So why has it gone straight back into beta today?
Apparently not everyone is comfortable with losing the beta sticker from their GMail service, it makes them feel a little uneasy or something. So those obliging people at Google have added a ‘Back to Beta’ configuration setting for the app, under the GMail Labs tab, which according to the description that accompanies it “soothes the soul by putting the familiar beta sticker back on the Google Mail logo.” Sigh.
Meanwhile, back in the sane world, Google seems to be admitting that the decision to remove the beta tag from Google Mail was taken to appease the business customers who feel uneasy buying into the whole Google Apps thing when there’s a bloody great big ‘Beta’ sticker on one of the key parts. So maybe we haven’t escaped the insanity after all.
Matthew Glotzbach, Director, Product Management, Google Enterprise explains “Ever since we launched the Google Apps suite for businesses two years ago, it’s had a service level agreement, 24/7 support, and has met or exceeded all the other standards of non-beta software. More than 1.75 million companies around the world run their business on Google Apps, including Google. We’ve come to appreciate that the beta tag just doesn’t fit for large enterprises that aren’t keen to run their business on software that sounds like it’s still in the trial phase.”
Rated: 100% (4 votes)
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