Google drops the beta label, finally

Google (GOOG) announced today that it is dropping the "beta" label on many of its applications. If you have been a long time user of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs or even Google Talk, you may have been puzzled by why all these applications seem to be, perpetually, in "beta."

Andrew Kovacs, a spokesperson for Google Apps, told DailyFinance that there wasn't any particularly good reason for why its applications carried the "beta" label. "Our standards for what stays in "beta" varies across products," says Kovacs. "We didn't do a good job of carrying those standards across all of our products. Most consumers don't care anyway about the label, so we didn't have any pressure to take it out."