[cujo]

That's fine on paper, but the reality is that none of their "beta" products come with any real user risk.

I think it's more of a "test drive" scenario for google. It's fully baked but they want to see how it changes behavior on a wider scale where people make choices independent of the organization.

[eitally]

That's not true. Google has hosed large enterprise customers many times by rolling out new features or changes to existing products with zero warning, and they have adopted a phased deployment process and a formal trusted tester program to help mitigate it. Contacts is a waaaaaaay bigger deal for businesses than individuals, and there are tons of edge cases Google has to deal with re: Apps customers.

[cujo]

I honestly don't know of any google apps that have hosed enterprise customers. Can you point me at some articles or something?

[dserodio]

There are risks: I merged some contacts on the new web UI and now my Android phone has 8(!) different versions of one particular contact of mine.