A lot of companies play to their weaknesses well, one of the best are SaaS vendors that tout “multi-tenancy” as the best method for delivering hosted applications. While multi-tenancy does benefit the vendor by reducing overhead and maintenance personnel needed, etc., it rarely benefits the user. Multi-tenancy limits choice in terms of data access for backups, and also forces users to upgrade to new versions immediately upon release. (Sometimes called “light switch” upgrades – since the next time you turn on the lights at your business, you realize you’ve been upgraded to a new version.) Also, downtimes can be longer and more regional – since many users on a large multi-tenant instance will be down at the same time.
But multi-tenant SaaS vendors have made a good business out of pushing the multi-tenant concept. So, I was thinking, to minimize some of the flack these vendors get around downtimes due to peak usage, they can create built-in “pauses” for users. Something like screen pops that stall the app, with a sign that says “Go Outside, Get Some Air!” or “Hey, isn’t it time for a cup of coffee?”
These give the user the impression the SaaS vendor cares about them – wants them to lead fuller, less work-centered lives. And at the same time, the company can better regulate how many users are tapping into their limited multi-tenant systems. It’s win-win.
Unfortunately for Sugar, we use a multi-instance infrastructure with our On-Demand 2.0 offering that offers greater flexibility, freedom and customization capabilities, so this type of feature is unecessary and would simply intrude on our users’ productivity.
