Google actually has software that is NOT in beta ?
My gast is well and truly flabbered.

A classic example is Google Calendar, which was released without a Task (Todo) list, several years ago. So bright soul even found traces of code needed to support Task lists, but despite numerous appeals from users, this feature has never appeared. 

Instead, there now seems to be some sort of cosy relationship with "Remember the Milk".

And let's not get into the synchronization mess, shall we ?

Young people (meaning new people to computers aswell) may install these apps without worry, but I think old people (people that have been around for a while) always think twice before installing anything BETA.

my main system will never have anythig beta installed on it (I still remember Internet Explorer 3 beta and the re-install that followed).

I have another system which does not have anything critical installed on it, so I use this for testing new apps. Not everyone has 2 setups, and will not risk beta software.

BETA = RISK 

and no one is going to take risks if they don't have to (perhaps they will and I'm wrong, perhaps google Chrome will achieve more than ~2% market adoption before it becomes final)

So.....they are just being more honest then other?

None of Google's products are even worthy of being anything more than beta. Gmail ironically has the most worthless search engine imaginable, Google Talk leaks memory continuously and has periodic high-CPU stalls, Google Toolbar 5 has buggy incompatibilities along with *losing features* with each update, Chrome is as basic a browser there is, and the list goes on. I wish they'd concentrate on pushing these projects towards completion, because these beta programs have so many irritating dysfunctions.

Google keeps its products in beta because they can't be sued for a whole host of things because it legally isn't a 'released' product.

Does anyone remember when M$ cried foul over the 'office' applications Google has? There's nothing any court could do about that since they are never going to be a 'released' product. 

It's quite brilliant, actually.

maybe it's something rather simple.

Maybe they don't need to pay tax on "beta" apps and as such just keep everything as BETA as a tax relief ;)

Yeah products eternally in beta stage can't be blamed for flaws. It's from Google and it's beta, who cares if it crashes once in a while.

I find this quite irksome as I pay for "premium" Gmail and hosted apps. It would also put me off buying the Google phone as most of the apps on there are still in Beta so you could be left without access to mail at all.

Maybe Google is trying to protect itself in the land of lawsuit-instead-of-good-morning?

The only reason they stay in beta is so it gives them the get out if the service goes tits up or they decide for whatever reason to withdraw it.

If Gmail suddenly destroyed itself and lost everyones data they can go "oh well it was only beta so you knew the risks, sorry!"

Pathetic really.

I'm glad Google recognises its software is in beta, most companies would rather foist unfinished software on us under the guise of "final release quality" yet it actually turns out to be buggy crud.

Not only are Google webapps in beta quite stable, they are often superior to "final" released products from the competition.