Disclosure: Though I am in to marketing now, I have done 10+ yrs in software development and I am NOT writing this post as a marketer.
Visit any tech blog and I am reasonably sure you will see something about multi-tenancy (MT). In my humble opinion, it is an architectural style to serve multiple tenants (clients) with a single codebase. Many blokes swear by the necessity of MT for SaaS. Contrast this with the ASP model where each tenant has a separate instance/version of the software. The beauty of MT is that the same codebase is able to serve multiple org whose data may be co-located – with a physical/logical partition. Pundits claim that without MT, the holy grail of ‘mass customization’ in SaaS (i.e. economies of scale) cannot be achieved even in this era of commodity hardware. A builder looking to construct 50000 houses is well advised to go for apartment complexes rather than row-houses, right? Once you have different codebases (row-houses), as in the case of ASP, you will go mad sooner-than-later maintaining (i.e. bug-fixes, enhancements, customizations etc) all these distinct versions.
So with all these wonderful advantages of MT listed above, why do I say that MT is abused?
#1: MT is NOT new.
Apparently, apartment complexes called “insulae” have been constructed around ~100 AD in Rome: http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/romans/architecture/insulae.htm
We have worked with customers since the 90’s who designed (or had it designed by us) their software to be MT. And the words SaaS and multi-tenancy weren’t even born then. It is just that this style has gone mainstream now (atleast in the blogs). What became a necessity to some of our customers (after some not-so-successful attempts at other architectural styles) is now a well-known option to the beginner. There has always been some software or the other written to be multi-tenant, because of business or other exigencies.
#2: Hotmail
Wasn’t this service available through internet?” Didn’t it use the same codebase to deliver my mails to me and your mails to you? Of course, business applications (eg:CRM) are more complex than email – needing customized workflows, configurability, unique business rules etc but aren’t those part of the natural evolution process of software? I am not saying that MT is easy but does it seem rocket science?
#3: He who is a rich customer rules!
I read somewhere that SalesForce has a separate version of its software for its large tenant. It may be a rumor but in general, if a tenant accounts for 15% of your revenue, does he not deserve premium, customized service? So, MT seems to have been brought to its knees in front of a powerful (paying) customer.
#4: Anonymous: Those who know don’t speak; Those who speak don’t know
The hackers who have typically architected/designed multi-tenant apps seem to be the silent types, who dismiss all this hoopla about MT and prefer writing software (as against blogs). This paved the way for non/semi-technical thought-leaders/marketers/sales folks to usurp the buzzword and poison the internet forums. As they say, MT vessels make much noise:-) Am generalizing of course!
To conclude, I do understand that some of my arguments above are prejudiced and debatable but these are ramblings of an ex-engineer than a rational thought-out post of a seasoned marketer
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"Online communities, iterative methodologies and software scalability" with Andres Camacho - Vice President of Engineering at Vinfolio 
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