The beta days are over at Google, at least for some of its most popular applications. As we predicted two months ago, Google is finally taking the beta label off of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and GTalk today. And it is about time. For instance, Gmail, which launched five years ago and is by far Google’s most popular non-search app, is already older than many startups.
Gmail is now one of the leading email services and can no longer hide under the cover of a beta label. Over the past year in the U.S. alone, according to comScore, Gmail has grown 48 percent to 36 million unique visitors, quickly gaining on AOL Mail (40 million uniques, down down 6 percent) and Windows Live Hotmail (46 million uniques, down 1 percent) to grab the No. 2 spot after still-safe Yahoo Mail (98 million uniques, up 13 percent). Worldwide, Gmail had 146 million visitors in May, about half of Yahoo Mail’s and Hotmail’s numbers, and about three times bigger than AOL Mail.
Google Docs (launched in 2006), Calendar (launched in 2007), and Gtalk (2005) are not quite as popular, but all three are also fully-baked products. The reason, though, that Google is making this change is purely marketing because it sells these Google Apps bundled together to businesses for $50/user/year. Matt Glotzbach, director of product management at Google Enterprise, tells me removing the beta label was really for business customers. “Consumers don’t really care,” he says, “for some of our business customers it is certainly an issue.”
Google Apps are now used by nearly 2 million businesses and they account for hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues for Google. It is ramping up to be quite a nice little side business, and sales have been brisk as CIOs look for any way to cut costs. For enterprise customers, Google is also adding two new features today: the ability to delegate access to your email account to another person such as an administrative assistant, and enhanced retention features for compliance purposes.
Hiding behind a beta label? Really? How, exactly, are they hiding?
I personally have received a couple support requests with “Sorry for the inconvenience. Google (insert product here) is still in beta and we are blah blah” and never answer any actual questions. For example, SMS in Gmail was taken down awhile ago and no one has responded to that thread except once with “It’s still only a beta.” from a staff member.
It’s about time though and nothing has changed at all. I also don’t know of any business yet that has not used Google Apps because it’s a beta. But if Google thinks that they are going to get more signups because it’s not a beta, than, well… uh…
the staff member wasn’t saying that gmail was still in beta, rather the sms feature, which is clearly in beta as its part of the gmail labs project.
when it is in beta, it can break and there is an excuse.
Hiding? Well Beta is simply Googles way of saying that “Look, are might be some bugs out ther, so help us fix them”. You don’t have to excuse yourself again n again after making a mistakes, just stick a beta sticker over ur product.
I guess if you have to pay for it they better take the beta label away.
When? It still shows beta..
They are still displaying beta label on the logo after we sign in.
But I still have the beta label on my Gmail-Gdocs-Gcal, or is it something just for the payd version of apps?
“Gmail has grown 48 percent to 36 million unique visitors, quickly gaining on AOL Mail (40 million uniques, down down 6 percent) and Windows Live Hotmail (46 million uniques, down 1 percent) to grab the No. 2 spot after still-safe Yahoo Mail (98 million uniques, up 13 percent). ”
If Yahoo Mail has 98m, Hotmail has 46m and GMail has 36m how is GMail in the No. 2 spot? Is this a typo?
Doh!
It says it is gaining on them to take the #2 spot.
I would re-read the part of the article you quoted if I were you.
It says that they are “quickly gaining” on AOL and Hotmail.
beta was so 2006? er…5? whatever it was, it was so much bullshit to add that as superscript or subscript to your logo. already lowering expectations of your users.
“AOL Mail (40 million uniques, down down 6 percent)…”
Not just down, but “down down”
Wow. That’s pretty crazy. I never thought we’d see the day.
Still beta up here in Canada. After this I hope they focus on adding some more features to Docs
They should put it back on.
Luckily there is is a Labs feature that lets you use the old beta logo.
Hey, maybe now Apple will finally allow Gmail to have push email.
I think you have that backwards, it would be up to Google to implement that feature in IMAP on their cloud-side, the iPhone itself has the ability to support it clientside which is why Yahoo! and MobileMe are both able to take advantage of it (though Yahoo! only implements it partially.)
The already release a plugin inside the labs to get the BETA sticker back on http://gmailblo...ck-to-beta.html
It’s about time. When I was back in the corporate world, the beta label was a deterrent causing our CIO to not even entertain the idea of moving infrastructure to Google.
Still showing beta for me after re-login.
About time, I hardly use their products anymore because of the “beta” label, if they don’t trust their products enough to come out of beta, why would I trust them with my information.
I have no plans to start using them since I found other sites that get the job done and don’t sit in beta for 5+ years.
Google Fail
Is not that they dont trust about their products is just a way the developed all their apps, like a way of saying “there still more to go, we are improving more things”
But, sadly, it does means too “if fails is not our fault, is beta we told you”
I’d like to know what you use. Yahoo Mail? Zoho?
Now with google charging for 50$ to use apps… I wonder where will all the ppl go to (even that there’s still a link for the free version just we don’t know how long will the keep it) I guess yahoo will rise again… maybe hotmail? (which I think not)
I primarily was using yahoo mail for a long time, still have an account but mostly use my hosting company for my email now.
I use MS Office for all my document work, I do use Google for Analytics still though.
I use Bing.com for search now.
Live Messenger for Chatting, have Gtalk installed but rarely use it.
Beta is also a good thing; it’s a sign that the product is still being developed and improved. It’s often the case that a product is released and forgotten about, when it says “beta” it signifies current development, ergo: a better service.
Using the term “Beta” is fine, using it for more than a year or year and a half is ridiculous, especially when it comes from a company like Google where it has the resources to properly build a web application.
A company can add features without the product remaining in beta, in fact I would say your primary product should be OUT of beta before even thinking about adding new features.
That’s the silliest reason I’ve heard yet for *personal* use of a product. If you’re a CIO, that’s one thing (and really the only reason the Beta label is gone). If the product is best of breed, they can call it “Super Alpha” for all I care, I’ll still use it!
You didn’t mention your hosting company, but I can almost guarantee GMail has more feature, a better interface, better spam protection, etc than whoever they are, and when you change hosts, you don’t have to lose your email address.
Scott,
Are you telling me you would go out and buy a car on it that said “Beta” under the company logo. It doesn’t matter whether it’s for personal use or not, they want people to use their services whether it’s personal or not.
As far as email goes, it doesn’t matter what hosting company I use, my email will always remain the same, I’ll have the same features and it has a much better interface and feature list than GMail. It’s called using Outlook for the interface and it’s called having an email associated to my own domain name (which I can move anywhere I want to)
In fact my email is more flexible than having a Gmail account because I can switch hosts, providers, etc. etc. and can always carry my email forward with me. That can’t be said for a Gmail account in which I would have to stay with google no matter what.
Google will always keep the free Gmail for consumers because if anything it gives them mindshare of users.
Now that’s interesting, TechCrunch must have agreed to an NDA after all to get this news right on time. Very unclear policy.
I still see the word beta next to By Google in the Inbox
How can Yahoo Mail be so popular? They suck at spam filtering.
The sad thing is once they realize that, it’s already too late to switch easily because Yahoo makes you pay to forward mail. Gmail has never charged for forwarding.
Yeah, you can tell everyone your new email, but people hate doing this. Same thing with phone numbers.
Mine does not say beta. I’m sure everyone will not see the word “beta”. Just will take time.
Great news.. i think if u refresh the page or clear cache it shouldnt show beta.. im in Israel…
Time to start charging…
The Beta just disappears when I refresh my gmail…!
you can re-enable the beta logo through one of the labs.
I still cant understand wots beta is all about??
IS it a new version of same product or some RE Launch??
Google has a long way to go in all these applications..
In Gmail you can’t create a label under a label..(I would love to have this..)
In Calendar..
You can’t choose days of your wish..(You can’t choose Monday and Thursday everyweek for an repeating event)
I think it has not been fine tuned to people’s needs.
That’s right. I think Calendar is one of the apps that needs more tuning. Maybe GMail is ready but I don’t think the whole packet is.
That’s great, Google mail’s awesome and featurefull application not just filled with banners of ads like hotmail
So are we getting any cool new features to kick off the shedding of the beta label?
Labs offers a feature to put the Beta Label back on the Google Logo, I did, as Google never comes out of Beta LoL
Sniffle… our little apps are all grown up.
Looks like it’s time for you guys to update your CrunchBase logos.
whooot whooot! finally….
…. so whats the difference btw beta and non beta?
After Google and Bing now its Yahoo – http://www.mone...searchers-tool/
yeah, I noticed this just before reading this article. Finally!
Nice to know that Google applications are out of beta. Now google has many products to market. Now they are coming out with new operating system. Hope that also becomes a big hit.
Its been long time since these were in beta.It had to be out of it.Though it could still need some more improvements.
vicky
http://voipsms.blogspot.com