{"id":903,"date":"2007-10-03T22:14:47","date_gmt":"2007-10-04T04:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/wp\/?p=903"},"modified":"2007-10-03T22:14:47","modified_gmt":"2007-10-04T04:14:47","slug":"multitenancy_an","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=903","title":{"rendered":"Multitenancy and the network effect"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an intriguing blog post<\/a> yesterday, Salesforce.com began soliciting its clients’ help in coming up with a name for a possible “new service enabling companies to share leads, opportunities and custom objects with each other (assuming both are using salesforce.com).”<\/p>\n

Clearly, the company has something cooking, and I think it points to an as yet under-appreciated advantage of the multitenant systems that Salesforce and other utility-computing firms are running: the ability for companies using the systems to easily exchange data with one another. Such exchanges have always been cumbersome (think EDI), and that’s hindered the automation of supply chains and distribution networks. But with two or more companies using a shared multitenant system, data exchanges become checkbox simple – a matter of granting permissions, setting rules, and subscribing to feeds. Corporations can start exchanging data as easily as individuals share information in a multitenant social network like Facebook.<\/p>\n

Up to now, companies have tended to worry about the downside of shared systems, particularly the possibility of unintended data leaks. What they haven’t focused on is the beneficial flipside: the ability to easily program data exchanges with partners. If Salesforce’s blog post is any indication, the company is likely prepping a set of tools that will build cross-client data sharing into its applications – in a way that goes well beyond its current “partner relationship management” add-ons.<\/p>\n

For Salesforce and other multitenant vendors, the big payoff would be the creation of a strong network effect. As companies begin trading data within a system, their partners would have a big incentive to join the system as well. At some point, a critical mass might be reached, setting off a snowball effect. Of course, where there’s a network effect, there’s also a lock-in effect. Convenience has a price.<\/p>\n

The current leading candidate for the service’s name, by the way, is Salesforce to Salesforce, or S2S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an intriguing blog post yesterday, Salesforce.com began soliciting its clients’ help in coming up with a name for a possible “new service enabling companies to share leads, opportunities and custom objects with each other (assuming both are using salesforce.com).” Clearly, the company has something cooking, and I think it points to an as yet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}