Beta Testing

The Beta testing process is after alpha testing. Alpha testing is done "in house," but Beta testing is mainly available to selected individuals closely related to the company in testing. Author Mark Hamilton mentions on informIT network, "External users prior to official release of the software typically do beta testing." Most of these beta tests are publicly known as beta versions and beta releases. The main purpose of this beta test is to ensure that if there are any bugs that haven't been discovered yet they could be found and fixed at this stage of Web site development. The process can be daunting to companies like Google for example, which has their E-mail (gmail) service in 'perpetual beta' due to internal company functionality debates and changes. Sometimes this beta testing stage can be readily available to the public as an 'open source' in order to find bugs faster. For instance, Mark Hamilton describes beta testing to be, "extremely useful because they allow much more extensive testing than could be accomplished solely by the in-house development and quality assurance teams." The turn around time between delivering the beta test to its users on a small scale versus a large scale can be dramatic and eventually surmount the software program to reach a 'gold' (a complete flawless software [Web site] program version) due to a successful beta test launch.