Coming from a software background, to me, the definitions of the development stages of pre-release software are significant and not to be trifled with. To me, alpha tests mean really beware – bleeding edge software – we guarantee it’s going to break on you. Beta software means – still buggy watch out – we’re going to let our users find our bugs for us.

Here at the old Enquiring Mimes factory we tend to look at plenty of software that is described as beta, and we frequently recommend software and sites that are still theoretically in beta – but always with the caveat reminding you to be careful of possible glitches.

What we’re finding more often is that software and web sites never leave the beta stage and the publishers even in many cases may start charging for use during beta.  This leads us to believe maybe a new definition of beta has arrived.

As I’ve mentioned before one of the most puzzling still-in-beta sites is Google’s Gmail which was launched in 2004 and has been used extensively by (me included) zillions of users who seldom encounter any semblance of a bug (spam yes, bug no).

This mystery is explained, at least a bit, in an article on NetworkWorld’s Buzzblog where a Google spokesman explains why a recent study by Pingdom finds that 45% of Google’s products still wear the beta tag.  They tell it like this

“We have very high internal metrics our consumer products have to meet before coming out of beta. Our teams continue to work to improve these products and provide users with an even better experience.  We believe beta has a different meaning when applied to applications on the Web, where people expect continual improvements in a product.  On the Web, you don’t have to wait for the next version to be on the shelf or an update to become available.  Improvements are rolled out as they’re developed.  Rather than the packaged, stagnant software of decades past, we’re moving to a world of regular updates and constant feature refinement where applications live in the cloud.”

If you break it down, ths seems to mean that the new definition of beta means more changes/features are coming.

Microsoft adds new features to Outlook every couple of years in a new release.  Google can add new features and adapt to changing market conditions — daily or monthly by adding or changing Gmail.  If that’s true maybe beta is a good thing.

I often cheerlead the virtues of Google Docs and Zoho as free and pervasive substitutes for large and expensive applications like Microsoft Office.

Image by: Yodel Anecdotal

Well it seems, ReadWriteWeb last week conducted a survey of their readers to find out what they use as a word processor and found that 48% still use Microsoft Office and the largest group that used an online word processor was 17% using Google Docs.

Also unsettling in the RWW survey was that compared to the same survey last year, Google Docs gained ground not against Microsoft Office but instead from other online services like Zoho.  Microsoft Office actually increased in usage from 46% last year to 48% this year.

Admittedly online surveys are unscientific and not especially accurate, but RWW’s readers tend to be tech savvy and early adopters so it would seem that use of online services to replace desktop services for applications like word processors and spreadsheets still has a long way to go.

This next year will be interesting to watch as Google Docs and the Zoho suite mature and Adobe has entered the online word processor space with Buzzword and browsers like the recently introduced Chrome aim specifically at facilitating the use of web services by making the experience as positive as possible.

Here at EnquiringMimes we won’t be backpedaling on our belief that using web services is the best and most productive way to work.

To remind you of compelling reasons for using web applications, here are a few:

• No application need to be installed on your computer
• You always have the latest version, someone else maintains your applications for you.
• When you save a document at work, it’s accessible when you get home without having to copy to a thumb drive.
• You don’t have to worry about disk crashes, your documents are automatically backed up for you — you don’t have to be your own IT department.

Why Google thinks we need a new browser

The Chrome developers say that all of the current browsers were invented before web services and with the new way people use the web it’s time for a modern browser for today’s web they said they emphasized speed, stability and security.  Their intention was to design Chrome using a minimalist approach wherein you don’t have to think about the browser or even see it that much, the emphasis is on the web page.

There is truth in this, today’s AJAX and Web 2.0 applications use plenty of a technology called javascript, here the developers say they tore apart the javascript engine and rebuilt it for speed.

What Chrome does

We’ve taken a look at Google Chrome and found some interesting features:

• One box for everything — there is no separate search, bookmarks or history box.  Just type in the one entry box and Chrome will search for you or offer alternatives from you bookmarks or sites you’ve already visited.
• When you install Chrome it will import your bookmarks and passwords from Firefox or Internet Explorer so you’re good to go when you start using Chrome.
• Instead of the usual download manager window, Chrome shows downloads at the bottom of the screen while they are downloading.
• Google Chrome includes an interesting feature that we’ve been seeing lately in utilities and next generation browsers — the ability to create mini-applicatiions out of web sites for the kinds of sites you might keep open all day — for me, Gmail.  The mini-app gets it’s own desktop shortcut and looks more like a regular application than a browser.
• When you open a new tab, the first page you see is a favorites page that has been built by Chrome of the pages you most often visit.
• The tabs are dynamic and their position can be moved around.  You can also move tabs between windows and pull a tab off of one window and make it a new window of its own.
• From an internal perspective, each tab runs independently of other tabs so that it something bad happens(like the website causes the browser to crash) to one tab it won’t effect other tabs or cause Chrome to crash.
• Since each tab is separate, Chrome gives you a nice feature called the Task manager that lets you see the status of each tab and optionally shut one down if it’s using too much of your computer’s resources.
• A browser window can be opened “Incognito” which means no records are kept of where you search in that window — let’s face it, that kind of behavior is called Porn-mode in other browsers  — it “protects your privacy”.
• Google Chrome starts up quickly and is fairly fast at displaying web pages.  When it reopens, it remembers your tabs from your last session.
• Chrome makes use of Google Gears which allows many web sites to be used when you’re offline.

Google Chrome is fully open source so you won’t be tied to any operating system or, eventually, platform.

Our Verdict?