Perpetual Beta services

Today, online services are in perpetual beta since years and it sounds a bit strange for an engineer that delivers software.
I mention Flickr for example that has been in beta for several years.

Going deeper on why perpetual beta and not stable release, I see the way software is implemented is changing. Developing over small iteration requires to split software into feature and components into services: smaller is the iteration (1-5 days) more is the dependency to a service crafting approach where services crosscuts around the architecture by improving the architecture. Small iteration produces few lines of code then small bugs, and test is shortened too. This makes the software to change frequently by increasing stable services and beta services over time.

Development to production small iteration approach gains lots of benefits like:

• rapid return of investment;
• rapid change when competitors launch the same service;
• user centric needs;
• rapid solve possible bottleneck with short downtime;
• rapid scaling on business continually iterating over new functionality.

This type of approach is making previous 3-4 iterations stable and well tested and the other still in beta because they're really in beta.

Adopting short iterations, requires a new mindset in achieving Software Architecture: SOA is an example where what is implemented is Software broken into Services that implements features.
This means beta is for feature.
This means that business feature is still in beta, and consolidates over time when users thinks they're stable.

Flickr is again an example.

It has been qualified as beta for several years and this is the approach of big ventures that are delivering feature iteration over iteration investing money iteration over iteration and driving behavior over user requirements. In facts, to organize what service will be the next released service, Flickr and the other players are creating communities of users that evaluated and propose new behavior discussing on it.
This is why modern web site are proud to declare "beta" for 2 or 3 years and to move to "gamma" after 4 years.

It is more a business practice than a software practice.


I'll continue this topic by drilling down my mind map to focus better on how SOA, Virtualization, Agile are related.
Stay in touch!