When to remove the Beta tag?

My team will soon be launching a web app in Beta. At what point does the Beta tag need to go?

Google seems to hold on to the Beta tag for a long time while others do it for a month or so. Is there some rule of thumb like all known bugs fixed to follow or a time frame or some other methodology for thi开发者_开发问答s?

Of course when Beta is gone then money can be made so how does development relate the importance of a beta period to management?

I am wanting to know what are/is the criteria that should be used for a Beta to be marked complete. Not when we are ready but when the app is ready.

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How long your software remains "Beta" completely depends on the meaning you give to it. Usually stepping out of beta means the application reached "some level" of quality, or is stable enough (not much new features, API is stable, ... pretty use-case dependent).

So ultimately, it completely depends on how you want to communicate with your customers and what you want your very own "beta" to be. Make it clear, stick to it, done.

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While agreeing that there's no formal definition for 'beta' I'd argue that it should be reasonable to assume that a web application's transition out of beta is when the developers think that it's in a state where it's fully usable by its target audience -- not that it's never going to change, but that people aren't in general going to be waiting on a feature to be finished or a bug to be fixed before they can use the website.

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An app in Beta means it isn't ready for production use. If you take your app out of beta, be prepared for people to use it in critical production environments. And as Justin said, be ready to support it as well.

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Shrink-wrap software goes through the following sequence: alpha, beta, release candidate, production. Alpha means it's in development, but good for testing. Beta means that it's feature complete and ready for testing. Release candidate means that this might be the final version, but it needs to be tested to be sure. Productions means that we've given up on it and it's now for sale.

For web applications, beta means "new".

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There is a difference/independence between technical version numbering (1.2.3 alpha-beta-RC etc.) and giving products brand names and tags. Because it is displayed to the customers, I believe in your case "beta" is not a technical version numbering, but rather a business term and should be handled as such.

Tags like beta can signal what quality your product is in business terms of reliability, availability, security etc. After removing the beta tag you could let's say guarantee that the user interface, DOM model, document export format or public API is not going to change. Or you could remove the beta tag when you have decided what guaranteed SLA to provide.