Who Can Get Away with a Five-Year Beta Testing Cycle? Google’s Gmail Can!

By: Joe Diamond | Posted: 2009-07-10

Remember when Gmail was released as an invitation-only beta service in 2004? I do - I was one of the early adopters. Even then, the service didn't behave as if it were a beta. With little to no down-time and mailbox size limits that were (at the time) much bigger than any competitors, the service just worked. And it worked well. Best of all, it was, and still remains, free. The only entirely new concept that users had to put up with was a series of unobtrusive sponsored links from within the email platform. I use the phrase "put up with" fairly loosely, as there have been dozens of times that, because of the abilities of Google's search engine to produce relevant results, I was actually interested in the link I was being asked to click.

While Google's renowned for many things, they'll never be known as an organization that has short beta cycles. Andrew Kovacs, a Google spokesperson, attributes their extraordinarily long testing cycles to ensuring that their products meet their high standards. I have a hard time disagreeing with that. Just about every software company could learn a thing or two from their off-the-charts utility.

Utility aside, we all know that Gmail hasn't truly been a beta for roughly four-and-a-half years. Comparatively speaking, I'd say that the vast majority of "final" products released by software companies have been infinitely more bug-ridden than Gmail was on the day of its release. But, as they ramp up their efforts to offer a more compelling enterprise story, I understand their need to shed the beta label.

I'm in the process of starting a pool to determine how long Google Wave will be in beta for . Let me know if you want in.