Solution Manager users consume a SAP Licence

Question

Hello
I've been working with customers with Solution Manager and  I got a very extrange question.   A company has got a restriction about the numbers of users that can be created in Solution Manager.  They were said that only users which have a SAP productive licence (ERP/CRM/SRM, etc.) are allowed to use Solution Manager.  So, they deleted all users which do not have a productive user.  So all the consultants now cannot use SolMan for the projects.
In my view, this totally wrong, since you want to have all your support team, and consultants working in projects, using Solution Manager as fundamental tool, an for sure, most of them will NOT have user in the productive system. 
Do you have any clear statement somewhere in the Enterprise Support contract or somewhere else which clearly state that users in SolMan need to have a productive licence?  Is there any note, mail from SAP that say so?
I appreciate your input.
Regards
Esteban Hartzstein
TeByon Consulting
Director

Answer 1

Hello,
I got an answer from some very knowledgeable person at SAP, responsible for Solution Manager:
Hi Everyone:
The SAP Solution Manager is covered under the customeru2019s support agreement, so normally we have the customers address this with their account team if they have any questions.  There is more information in the solution manager homepage FAQ.   Note that all use of SAP Solution Manager is u201Ccoveredu201D by the customer agreement, including users.  The only exception is use of Service Desk for non-SAP components, in this case the account team can inquire if any additional licenses are required.
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2. What is the cost of installing SAP Solution Manager?
The following items regarding SAP Solution Manager are covered:
The SAP Solution Manager Software.
The license for SAP Solution Manager Standard Edition.
The license for MaxDB (formerly known as SAP DB). If customers choose to use a different database, database license costs may apply depending on the customer's agreement with his database vendor.
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3. Which licenses do customers need for SAP Solution Manager?
To run SAP Solution Manager, customers need the following licenses:
SAP Solution Manager
Database - The license for SAP DB is covered by the SAP maintenance agreement. If customers choose to use a different database, database license costs may apply depending on the customer's agreement with their database vendor.