What does 'beta' mean, and why is everything on the net going beta?

Answer 1

Beta is a test or pre-release of software and is often buggy, full of extra code and is not always fully functional. I say avoid it if you can. Good luck!

Answer 2

Beta is short for "beta testing." It is when a program is more-or-less complete, but it needs ordinary users to test it and see where the problems crop up. It is sort of a debugging stage, but the bugs are not so much actual program errors, but places where the programmer may have failed to anticipate the way a user would use a particular feature. Yahoo! Answers ran for several months in beta, but it is still being upgraded and improved, and bugs worked out, so the line between Beta and a supposedly final product is pretty arbitrary.

Answer 3

A test for a computer product prior to commercial release. Beta testing is the last stage of testing, and normally can involve sending the product to beta test sites outside the company for real-world exposure or offering the product for a free trial download over the Internet. Beta testing is often preceded by a round of testing called alpha testing.

Answer 4

The Beta version of software is a version still in testing. It's more polished than Alpa software which is the first run.

Companies are going with releasing Beta more and more often because there's a growing trend in the industry toward continual updates. Because of the time it takes to fully develop a software package, a company that starts a project, finishes it, tests it, fixes it, THEN markets it and sells it gets to market much later than their competitors who chose instead to start it, get it barely running, release it for Alpha, fix it incrementally, release it to Beta, polish it up, and then go to market.

Answer 5

Beta versions of software are often released to the public, or just to developers as a way to get peer-editing to hammer out bugs and prepare for an official release.

Typically, beta versions are pretty buggy and do not include all the features intended for release in the first official version.

Answer 6

Historical note: More formally, to beta-test is to test a
pre-release (potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software
by making it available to selected (or self-selected) customers and
users. This term derives from early 1960s terminology for product
cycle checkpoints, first used at IBM but later standard throughout
the industry. `Alpha Test' was the unit, module, or component test
phase; `Beta Test' was initial system test. These themselves came
from earlier A- and B-tests for hardware. The A-test was a
feasibility and manufacturability evaluation done before any
commitment to design and development. The B-test was a
demonstration that the engineering model functioned as specified.
The C-test (corresponding to today's beta) was the B-test performed
on early samples of the production design, and the D test was the C
test repeated after the model had been in production a while.



Source: Jargon File 4.2.0

Answer 7

Beta is the testing out stages of that program on the net

Answer 8

A "Beta" is a pre release of software. Example: If Yahoo lauch a Messenger version 8 beta, They have released the software for users to try it out before the finished product (software). Users try out beta software, finds and experiencing bugs, they rapports this back to the comapny, they fix it, and when all bugs are fixed, they release the finished software..
John

Answer 9

Beta means it in testing stage especially in software that they offers it to you free of charge inorder to find bugs for them. Mostly it is legal for them to do nothing for you if that beta program destoried something of you in accident.

Please be more careful when you are planing to use some beta programs.

Good luck!

Answer 10

Beta means something is still in development. I.E: it is not ready yet, they are just trying it out until they make a final version. So its like a draft version