Let’s all get a woodie over removing a beta label

While the rest of the real world is sucking back all the Michael Jackson Memorial news it can those of us in the tech world are falling to our knees to report on how Google has removed the Beta tag from Google Apps and Gmail. When I fired up FeedDemon this morning to get started on my day I was inundated with what seemed like a flood of news from all the major tech blogs about this blogosphere shaking news.

Just to give you an idea of the coverage here’s a list of blogs that I follow who wrote about this monumental event

After five years, Gmail is ‘beta’ no more! – The Raw Feed
Wait. “Gmail Beta” Isn’t a Registered Trademark? – Digital Daily
Gmail and other Google Apps ‘Out of Beta’ – TheNextWeb.com
Google finally rips the beta label off Gmail and other Google Apps – VentureBeat
Google Apps Leaves the Beta Label Behind – GigaOM
Google Finally Peels The Beta Label Off Gmail, Docs, Calendar, and GTalk – TechCrunch

That it took a company like Google the better part of five years for Gmail and two years or so for Google Apps to figure out that corporate IT had a problem using applications marked beta across their networks is a tad on the ridiculous side. This was nothing more than a marketing and PR move as nothing has changed with any of these beta stripped applications that makes them anymore of a finished product than they were before.

While the beta labeling of their software may have provided them with some legal protection they are now acknowledging that these are indeed finished and complete software applications. So it will be interesting to see what happens the next time Google Apps or GMail suffers a massive outage or data loss.

I will admit though as pointless as this type of news is it is fun to watch how everyone literally falls over themselves to get those posts out there whenever Google does anything.

image courtesy of WorldGaming