Mobile operators have managed to maintain their legacy message delivery platforms, despite the advances that have been made in platform capabilities over recent years. Traditional “Store and Forward” SMS delivery platforms have managed to retain their place, chiefly because of their cost. Historically, operating costs of these platforms are high and could be easily replaced. This report is primarily targeted at mobile operators in order to provide some strategic views and observations on the possibilities available to them to interoperate between the existing Short Message Service and Instant Messaging.

Traditional telecoms messaging services will remain a dominant factor in mobile network development, but will be integrated further into new services that will emerge by the continued convergence opportunities of services. Advanced mobile IM functionality will make use of many of the features that are readily available on mobile networks to maximize service capabilities and provide the same functionality as exists for IM now.

Operators and vendors will find this publication useful as they make decisions about messaging technology direction, messaging functionality, and extension of instant messaging into mobile networks with a mind towards evolving existing messaging solutions to more advanced capabilities.

Applications and Functionality Discussed

Direct Delivery
SMS Gateway
Billing and Reporting
Presence Data
Delivery Rules Engine
Text Gateway