By the time a product goes into outside testing (beta), it should be substantially functional.
Microsoft seems to take a different view:
1. Alpha testing -- Come again?
2. Beta testing -- the program starts up without throwing a major error but more than a few features are stubbed
3. Gold -- we've done all we can and we're frantically revising our goals downward; if it still doesn't work, we'll remove it in the release version
4. Ack phbbt!