So SIMpay will blow operators apart, by completely bypassing them and let people sell content without going through them?

Hmm, I'm not sure. As evidence for this, the article says that most content sold in Germany is off-portal: as if they are somehow ahead of us and this is the way things are going here. But actually, I think it's exactly the same here now: the ringtones and logos market is huge and all involves off-portal sales (using by premium SMS, which operators still take a large revenue share from). Off-portal doesn't mean you're free from operator involvement

What this article doesn't take into account is that portals don't just offer payment, they offer distribution: 1-button access to Vodafone Live!, for instance. What better place to advertise and offer mobile content? Every time we've added one of our mobile services to an operator portal, we've seen traffic to that service leap: this is how people get to content.

But even assuming SIMpay does affect the operators, where does that leave them? Well as I-Mode has shown in Japan, there's plenty of room for operators to reduce their revenue share significantly: from the 50/50 split typical today right down to 91/9, or who knows, maybe even further.

And the SIMpay FAQ avoids mentioning what share of revenue operators take, but is explicit that:

"Our intention is to offer an interface to the mobile operators' existing solutions so that customers will be able to reach connected merchants and vice versa."