3 ms·

I think he alludes to it with, "So we've focused our efforts on reaching our high bar for taking products out of beta, and all the applications in the Apps suit

by jemka 17y ago

I think he alludes to it with, "So we've focused our efforts on reaching our high bar for taking products out of beta, and all the applications in the Apps suite have now met that mark." Achieving the goals of the "high bar" seem to be the key to getting out of beta. But five years? That's a really high bar.

ken 17y ago
He does hint at it, but avoids saying anything concrete. I had no idea GMail was even one of the "Google apps" (I thought that name meant their spreadsheet / word processor, but I guess that's "Google docs"). These were all completely different products, doing different things, sometimes developed outside by a company Google later bought, and developed years apart, so it's not clear to me why this particular set of products needs to be un-"beta"'d all at once. It also doesn't speak to the more general question. I don't think their "beta" apps are inferior, in general, to their non-"beta" apps, so their "high bar" must be pretty crooked. :-)
- deleted 17y ago
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- derefr 17y ago
  They're sold as one big SaaS package to companies. They're taking the "beta" label off so said companies will stop bitching.
  - ken 17y ago
    Yes, that's the obvious conclusion to draw in this case, but it still doesn't reveal the general rule. For example, Google Groups has been out of beta for years, yet I find it unusably bad (e.g., no spam filtering or even killfiles so I have to hit "Older>>" about 5 times to see the next actual post), and based on a couple reviews I found just now, I'm not alone. I doubt they removed the "beta" label from GG so they could sell it as a service to companies.
    - cake 17y ago
      I find Google Groups awful in terms of usability too ! It's extremely difficult just to find your own post, then you have to understand why you can't post here, that you must subscribe to this group first there etc etc... No wonder they're switching to getsatisfaction (http://getsatisfaction.com/google/products http://getsatisfaction.com/google/products)

by jemka 17y ago

ken 17y ago

He does hint at it, but avoids saying anything concrete. I had no idea GMail was even one of the "Google apps" (I thought that name meant their spreadsheet / word processor, but I guess that's "Google docs"). These were all completely different products, doing different things, sometimes developed outside by a company Google later bought, and developed years apart, so it's not clear to me why this particular set of products needs to be un-"beta"'d all at once. It also doesn't speak to the more general question. I don't think their "beta" apps are inferior, in general, to their non-"beta" apps, so their "high bar" must be pretty crooked. :-)

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
derefr 17y ago
They're sold as one big SaaS package to companies. They're taking the "beta" label off so said companies will stop bitching.
- ken 17y ago
  Yes, that's the obvious conclusion to draw in this case, but it still doesn't reveal the general rule. For example, Google Groups has been out of beta for years, yet I find it unusably bad (e.g., no spam filtering or even killfiles so I have to hit "Older>>" about 5 times to see the next actual post), and based on a couple reviews I found just now, I'm not alone. I doubt they removed the "beta" label from GG so they could sell it as a service to companies.
  - cake 17y ago
    I find Google Groups awful in terms of usability too ! It's extremely difficult just to find your own post, then you have to understand why you can't post here, that you must subscribe to this group first there etc etc... No wonder they're switching to getsatisfaction (http://getsatisfaction.com/google/products http://getsatisfaction.com/google/products)