I couldn't agree with you more, Phil. And I think there's more to the story.
One reason why single-tenancies still exist is that they are inherently more open to a wide range of users and they can all operate under a single configuration. This is ideal for collaboration. But that can be taken to its own limitations especially in regards to security and independent workflows and information management.
As we see more business apps have a social component, cloud application platforms are going to need to not only be multi-tenant, but also feature community tenancies.
You still want to maintain segmentation between companies and users, but you also want to be able to leverage the user community as a whole.
Let's take the federal government as an example. They might have a private cloud in which each department had their own focused tenant. This lets them keep their apps specialized for their own tasks, while also leverage a common architecture and any core apps. But they would also benefit from a bit of cross pollination. Exchanging ideas, working with partners, even internal workforce crowdsourcing. A community tenancy with those kind of applications in mind would be necessary.
So rather than use yet another platform for community apps, your cloud app platform should be ready to support both multi-tenant as well as community tenancies.
Derek Cheng
www.LongJump.com
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