HardOCP News
[H] News
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The Windows Live team has announced the release of three new betas today. The betas include Windows Live Messenger 8.5, Windows Live Writer and Windows Live Mail and all three are available now.
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Three New Windows Live Betas
- Thread starter HardOCP News
- Start date
i for one hate how MS releases these betas. its not that they're releasing them, its just that they don't explain what beta means. i remember the last couple msn betas that came out (6 and 7) every jerk downloads them thinking that its an 'upgrade' or 'its a new version so it must be better!' and they have no idea what beta even means.
i remember talking to a friend thats not into computers. she got the 7 beta back when i believe. she, of course, had no idea what beta ment. once i explained to her that beta means software in some final testing stages and not really ready for release yet (although close usually) she was quite shocked and wouldn't have anything to do with it until the final version came out.
i just get ticked that MS doesn't make it clear that when you use this in some ways you can really be their guinnia pig. the average user has no clue and might decide otherwise if they had known regardless of how stable and/or secure a beta might be. i know i won't touch betas myself as i know theres a good possibility that theres some major flaws with it.
i remember talking to a friend thats not into computers. she got the 7 beta back when i believe. she, of course, had no idea what beta ment. once i explained to her that beta means software in some final testing stages and not really ready for release yet (although close usually) she was quite shocked and wouldn't have anything to do with it until the final version came out.
i just get ticked that MS doesn't make it clear that when you use this in some ways you can really be their guinnia pig. the average user has no clue and might decide otherwise if they had known regardless of how stable and/or secure a beta might be. i know i won't touch betas myself as i know theres a good possibility that theres some major flaws with it.
Spetsnaz Op
2[H]4U
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I bet if I bothered to read the documentation that comes with the Live software that it would explain what "beta" means for those who might not be aware!
i wasn't saying that releasing betas is bad, in fact i think we'd all agree that a good beta program is a great way of exorcising all the demons out of your software
all i was trying to say is that i think MS does not make it clear enough what beta is and what it means. i'm sure it is clearly defined in the EULA (or whatever they want to call it) but come on, when was the last time you read it word for word? probably not in a while. now consider when does the average computer user read them? probably never. sure it may be legal, but the end result is you have a lot of users that have what they believe is an 'upgrade' and really they're unknowingly playing tester for MS.
go find a friend who isn't as knowledgeable with computers as yourself (ie. not a [H] reader) and has one of these betas on their computer. then ask them what beta means. they probably don't know and thats what bothers me. then they sit there and gripe about how bad or unstable the program is because they don't know what they're running.
all i was trying to say is that i think MS does not make it clear enough what beta is and what it means. i'm sure it is clearly defined in the EULA (or whatever they want to call it) but come on, when was the last time you read it word for word? probably not in a while. now consider when does the average computer user read them? probably never. sure it may be legal, but the end result is you have a lot of users that have what they believe is an 'upgrade' and really they're unknowingly playing tester for MS.
go find a friend who isn't as knowledgeable with computers as yourself (ie. not a [H] reader) and has one of these betas on their computer. then ask them what beta means. they probably don't know and thats what bothers me. then they sit there and gripe about how bad or unstable the program is because they don't know what they're running.
masteraleph
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2005
- Messages
- 435
In terms of "beta," I'm more annoyed with Google for redifining "Beta" to mean "something we're not sure we're going to profit off of" rather than MS for using "beta" to mean, well, "beta."