Development status beta Modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle, accessed 11 June 2013. Beta is a development status which is generally applied to software by the developer/publisher once the majority of features have been implemented, but when the software may still contain bugs or cause crashes or data loss. Software designated beta is often released publicly, either on a general release or to a specific subset of users called beta testers. Allyson Lister