5 August 2005
MOMENTUM GENERATED BY SIMPAY MUST BE MAINTAINED
Nimbus hails the beginning, not the end, of m-commerce industry associations

Nimbus Systems, the leading European billing software and mobile payments company, has praised the standards set by Simpay and expressed its support for the Mobipay consortium that will action them in Spain. Nimbus has also urged the mobile sector to regard the now-dispersed Simpay as a crucial step in its development into a mature industry.

Simpay, which disbanded in June 2005, was a pan-European mobile payments platform set up in 2003 to tackle the billing and payment issues faced by the mobile market. Mobipay is a consortium of Spanish operators and banks that was introduced in 2000 to drive m-commerce. Initially targeted at "macropayments" (generally defined as payments over €10), Mobipay is now implementing the Simpay "micropayments" standard at a national level, placing Spain at the forefront of European m-commerce initiatives.

Tom Uhart, co-founder and managing partner of Nimbus Systems, comments: "Simpay was founded for all the right reasons and it tackled head-on the problems that threaten to thwart the potential of the m-commerce market. Writing it off as a failure is short-sighted and wrongly pessimistic. Now that the dust has settled, the mobile industry must focus on the benefits that Simpay initiated and put its efforts into promoting entities such as Mobipay across other European countries."

As the market for mobile content – such as ringtones, logos and games – continues to expand rapidly in Europe, it is exposing problems such as inflexible pricing, poor quality of service and the potential for fraud. This recognition, and the desire to meet the needs of consumers, content providers and operators, resulted in the collaboration of major European telecoms companies with the formation of Simpay.

"Because the mobile market has grown at an exponential rate, it is easy to forget that it is still in its relative infancy. By definition, much of what it does therefore has to push boundaries. First incarnations of ambitious projects like Simpay often don't work out as predicted, but they are an essential part of the learning curve that drives innovation and shapes the future," Uhart concludes.