Having had the misfortune to have to work with Oracle, this makes a sad amount of sense. I've never been closer to an aneurysm than at that time.
Instead of risking brain damage, you were supposed to pay Oracle's substantial training fees, or hire an Oracle-certified consultant.
The combination of baroque product and professional services is a common business model. Part of making that model work is keeping the product baroque, which does occasionally mean intentionally stifling innovation from within and exerting a damping influence (usually through legal or financial means) on minor competitors.
This works generally only market sectors that provide tools for other businesses and industries to do their jobs. It doesn't work in industries that supply end-user products such as refrigerators, or that supply raw or refined materials to other industries. No consumer will buy a refrigerator that requires him to spend a week at the manufacturer's site undergoing training at exorbitant expense. Similarly there's not very many ways in which you can complicate an I-beam or a liter of kerosene, and so there's not much opportunity there for a professional services revenue stream.
Jon's example of the petrochemical industry is a shining example of the other side of the coin. In America, at least, those companies have a long tradition of assembling end-to-end collections of divisions and subsidiaries to control the entire operation. The result is a surprisingly efficient operation in which innovation is rewarded. That doesn't apply to many other industries that are more driven by the economics and politics of subcontracting and competition.
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