iscenario was evaluated as unlikely to occur in the next 5 years - and if it were to occur its impact was not considered as significant. MS5: There will only be a small demand for pluggable service-supporting architecture with standard interfaces. This statement might be looked at in reverse manner: the rated low likelihood might mean that the near future demand for SDP (see Sect. 1 on chapter "Analyzing L. Frank the Current Phase of the OSS/BSS Software Market") is seen as large rather than small. Thus such architecture can be seen as welcomed in the telecom business. However, the architecture might be considered as mainly rearranging the operations of a CSP, and not SO much influencing its use and procurement of OSS/BSS software. Anyhow, its impact on the OSS/BSS industry in the next following years is seen as small. MS6: There will be no market for independent OSS/BSS software vendors who do not ally with network element vendors. The experts see that at least within the next 5 years there will still be room for niche vendors, or for other vendors merging/allying with other than network element vendors. The current strategies of some network element vendors aiming to expand their operations also to other OSS/BSS software apart from network management systems is considered not to have any large impact on the OSS/BSS industry. MS9: New software vendors will emerge to provide software needed for the telecom service providers' new services and enhanced processes. This is partly a controversial miniscenario, which goes contrary to the above presented miniscenarios stating a reduction in the number of vendors. The evalua- tions of experts would indicate that it is not likely that new OSS/BSS vendors would emerge in the next 5 years, but that the currently existing vendors would suffice to take care of the needs of CSP's. MS13 (OSSSW5): There will be less demand for traditional OSS/BSS software as similar software is already embedded into network elements. This miniscenario of embedded OSS/BSS software is not seen as 