application design question

[xzilla]

This isn\'t a strict php question, but I am wondering if anyone knows of any good documentation/articles on developing one ubiquitous \"one-size-fits-all\" application vs. several multiple specialized applications. Knowing that you would need to make reports on information for all customers combined (which would lean towards the one size method) but also that you would have to support multiple gui\'s and unique (though similar) datasets (which would lean towards seperate apps), does one approach have any significant advantages over the other? thanks in advance.

[Anon]

You asked an overtly general question so, of course, you'll get an overtly general answer. =)

If the application you make for each customer does the same fundamental task, only it requires a different interface for each customer, then there is no need to develop a custom app for each customer. You simply need a modular way to customize the interface.

However, if each app does a fundamentally different thing for each customer, then you need to make custom apps for each one.