Wt is beta testing

Beta testing comes in between Alpha testing and UAT in testing life cycle.
A version of a product is ready to be released ( coding and system testing done ) but the company wants users to take a feel of it and give suggestions / painful features / bugs.
So the version will be released to limited audience outside the programming / system testing team. This gives a general feel of what users are looking for and also catch any bug that might have escaped in system testing.

Beta testing done by the enduser in client side. i.e yahoo beta version we(customers) are only useing theat site if you found any issue then you can send its called beta testing.

Beta testing is nothing but first use of software by open users. Beta softwares are generally free. Company release the software to selected users or to open users(In case of websites etc.), users use them for free and can report bugs if any.

Gmail is also in it's beta release, propertywala.com is also in beta. So, it's nothing but pre final release in which performance/response is counted in user environment.

__________________
Brijesh Jain
brijesh.tester@yahoo.co.in
http://softwaretestingexpertise.blogspot.com