The greatest trick Meraki ever pulled was convincing the world to run Beta code.

Yeah, I changed it .. and that’s what I’m thinking now. Let me explain…

After reading this post on the Meraki blog about the new phone features—which really should have been around from day one.  I was impressed, but then that wore off really quick. I found one of the features was available right now—the easier porting of an existing phone number into the Meraki system. Nice.

But wait … where are the other two?

Well, they’re stuck in “Beta” code. ……. FUCK! Really!?!?

When it comes to things with the word Beta attached, I stay away. But why? Gmail was Beta for years.  Good point. But that’s email, not a phone call.  A phone call could be important and it could be nothing.  The important part being–the need to call emergency services. Do you want your phone to reboot, lockup, or just not work? Nah, I didn’t think so either.

Maybe Meraki could have two thoughts about code, maybe you still have your traditional “beta” code, that only runs with and on devices that you know are going to be watched and reported on for issues. Then you have almost production code, meaning we’re not sure if something exists, but this code train has passed our internal QA process, which Meraki talked about here. So after passing our check box items, we allow outside folks to run it, with them knowing that is *has* passed xyz of checks, but something could be around. Then after that is done, it becomes the “upgrade available” option in your Meraki Dashboard.

With that little warm feeling available, maybe it would be OK to run Beta code in production environments.  Maybe we’ll call this idea… the the condition of being transparent. Or we could just chase the ball under the the three cups. 🙂