But as SAP consolidates its online software storefronts and adds more products to them, it will be forced to become more transparent, in Reed's view.

It might be easier for SAP to lower the complexity of its licensing models, however, Reed said. "There's different categories of licenses. One thing making it harder is, how do you incorporate mobile consumption?"

"If I'm a company I want simple licensing scheme," such as a three-tier system composed of super users, regular users and "lightweight" users who rarely need to touch the system, Reed added. "SAP hasn't fully addressed that yet. I think there's a lot of work to do there."

The IDG News Service