Firstly, I'm sorry if this has been answered elsewhere, but I did a search and couldn't find an answer to my specific query.
I work for a company that has outsourced it's web production and I'm not sure if the design firm have set up the sites in the most cost effective and efficient way.
Essentially, we have three identical sites that are basically a CRM system. There is a database of clients and a list of investments they currently hold. They are for three sub-companies and are each hosted at www.example1.com, www.example2.com and www.example3.com. The web design company have paid for three separate EE licences and three separate MSM licences.
Firstly, I was wondering if the MSM licences were necessary given that each domain is hosting a separate (albeit identical) EE setup with a separate licence? Secondly, would there be anything stopping us from using subdomains with one of the MSM licences so having a set up like:
siteone.example1.com, sitetwo.example1.com and sitethree.example1.com
The three sites are for 3 sub companies and we would not want the users from each sub company to have access to the other sub companies (will this be the issue with using the subdomain/MSM idea? Is there a way of assigning access to only one subdomain to a user?).
The host we use offer unlimited subdomains and mySQL.
Thanks in advance for any assistance you can give!