Gmail Ends its 5 Year Beta Status

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

With little fanfare, Google’s wildly popular free Gmail email communications platform shed its Beta status.  Google Docs and Google Talk also are full fledged application releases as of yesterday.

Frankly, I’m surprised, since “Eternal Beta” seemed like a good legal strategy for a free offering, and based on Gmail’s market dominance, it did not hurt the product’s popularity.  The news is also odd, since according to this article: “No upgrade preceded the announcement; Google’s engineers merely looked over the products and were satisfied that they were ready for prime time.”

What is Google’s motivation for making the change?