I have a question for you. How long have you been using Gmail? What, 5 years? In that entire time did you know that it was still in beta? I have to admit I did not. Ok, I wasn’t paying close attention when I signed up a few years ago. Anyway, the important thing is, Gmail is finally out of the beta version as of July 7, 2009. This bit of news came from Google Apps’ senior product manager Rajen Sheth’s blog.

Gmail was released in beta version back in 2004. Although it was made available to the public in 2007, it remained in beta. This is probably the application that stayed the longest time in beta... Imagine 5 years! Well, finally, after 5 long years Google realized that Gmail has already passed all the tests and has complete features to make it reliable and easy to use. With the beta label off, Google hopes to attract big businesses to use more of its Web-based services.

It’s not only Gmail that was taken off the beta. Other Google Apps like Calendar, Docs, and Google Talk were also pronounced fit and feature complete. So, does this mean we can’t expect anything new from these apps? Of course not! If you know Google, you know that it’s a company that never stops innovating.