No, this is the SAP business model. If people think that Apple, Sony, or Microsoft try to lock you in to their 'walled garden' then these people have never seen an SAP installation/integration.
It's almost its own industry. There are fleets of consultants charging ~$1000 a day just to install the system. Then, as the OP said, they charge by the hour for customised reports which means that businesses have to choose their report very carefully, and will probably need several more hours consulting when one aspect didn't work quite how they thought.
I would be surprised if the commenter here was someone who didn't already have access to the data. They are being frustrated by consultants who want to keep their billable hours up, and extraneously restricting access under guises such as "this person doesn't have enough training to touch the system," because it keeps them in paid work.
It's almost its own industry. There are fleets of consultants charging ~$1000 a day just to install the system. Then, as the OP said, they charge by the hour for customised reports which means that businesses have to choose their report very carefully, and will probably need several more hours consulting when one aspect didn't work quite how they thought.
I would be surprised if the commenter here was someone who didn't already have access to the data. They are being frustrated by consultants who want to keep their billable hours up, and extraneously restricting access under guises such as "this person doesn't have enough training to touch the system," because it keeps them in paid work.
Source: Friend of mine. Man on the inside.