Analysts suggested that SAP officials demonstrate to tentative users at the conference the value of ESA and NetWeaver, the key pieces of the company's technology road map.

Joshua Greenbaum, an analyst at Berkeley, Calif.-based Enterprise Applications Consulting , said that some companies are hesitating to commit to an expensive migration to the proprietary ESA.

"They need to continue to talk about the value of the ESA and NetWeaver. Many customers are struggling with the overall issue of 'How am I going to justify this?'" Greenbaum said.

Rebecca Wetteman, an analyst at Wellesley, Mass.-based Nucleus Research Inc., said SAP has to demonstrate that the new SOA-based architecture will actually help customers craft reusable business processes.

"They need a strong story," she said, noting that Oracle is in the process of explaining plans for its next-generation Fusion applications.