I just have a question I know it is way out there but when a company says something is BETA how long is it usually in the BETA phase?? Is there a industry standard for this?? For example Gmail??
It depends. Sony was in BETA for about 20 years... (The youngins' won't get that joke.) Some items seem to be in BETA forever, like Microsoft's anti-spyware software. It just depends on what the company really wants to do with the product. Sometimes I think they just call it beta because it is a free product or service that they want to put out there for some reason or another, and beta seems just as good a reason as any to make it free. -Jay
Microsoft's Antispyware is really part of Windows Vista and OneCare, hence the beta, it's still being tested, improved and not supported. The idea of "Beta" is that it's almost finished but not quite polished or ready for general public consumption. Personally I think Microsoft's OneCare, AV, and AntiSpyware are junk and I refuse to use em, btw in Vista it's Windows Defender and it's part of the normal installation.
