Name of the Thesis:

Instant Messaging (IM) is widely used in the Internet and first Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) services are on the market. Industry scenarios are constructed in this thesis to form six internally consistent views of the future of MIM industry. MIM is positioned in relation to other messaging services and underlying key technologies are studied in order to gain an understanding of the industry structure. Interviews were conducted to find out the most important scenario variables affecting the MIM industry. The interviewees represent different actors on the mobile messaging markets: mobile network operators and mobile device manufacturers. Terminal support and interoperability were found as the most important scenario variables. Consequently, these variables were combined to build the industry scenarios. The resulting scenarios were described in terms of industry structure, structural attractiveness, sources of competitive advantage and competitor behaviour. The scenarios show number of possible competitive advantages for the industry players. Cooperation between the mobile operators and the Internet IM providers, usability and competitors are the ones that emerge from multiple scenarios. These scenarios serve as a basis for constructing strategy