Wow Pictures! Makate asked for N1.9 trillion, Vodacom offered just N1.3 billion


South Africa's 'Please Call Me’ inventor Nkosana Makate is entitled to 5% of telecommunication giant Vodacom’s revenue generated from his invention for the past 20 years, the Pretoria High Court ruled on Tuesday.

Makate first laid a claim in court in 2015 for millions of rands from Vodacom for the successful service that the company introduced in 2001, which allows cellphone users to send a free message to another user requesting that they be called back.

The Constitutional Court in 2016 ordered Vodacom to pay their former accountant for coming up with the concept. Protracted negotiations ensued between the two parties, but failed to reach a settlement.

Makate rejected Vodacom’s offer of 47 million rands (1.3 billion naira) in 2019.

Judge Wendy Hughes added: “The total voice revenue included Please Call Me revenue derived from prepaid, contracts (both in-bundle and out-bundle) and interconnect fees as set out in Vodacom’s annual financial statements.”

“The determination (R47m) by the CEO is referred back to Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub who is obliged to make a fresh determination with the following directives: The applicant (Makate) is entitled to be paid 5% of the total voice revenue generated from the PCM product from March 2001 to March 2021,” read the judgment in a SowetanLIVE report.

Hughes ordered Joosub to finalise the new court resolution within one month.

Makate received widespread support on social media platforms. A group that called itself ‘The Please Call Me Movement’ was later formed to put pressure on Vodacom to pay up. They held protests outside the company’s head quarters in Midrand, calling on management to pay Makate R70 billion (N1.9 trillion) as a settlement.

Speaking to SAFM, Makate said he was relieved after a 20-year battle that culminated in 10 years of litigation.

“It’s a relief, judgment has finally been made. The court agreed with us… ‘Please Call Me’ is still popular and generating revenue for all networks.”

Makate said he doesn’t have an estimation as to how much he would receive from Vodacom.

“Let’s allow the CEO to do it according to the model as instructed by the court. The CEO will have to deliver within a month as per the judgement…it has been a long journey and we are reaching its culmination.”

Makate, Please call me

Chei And Dangote money never reach trillion dollars

Money man

That's approximately $4.5bn.
With this judgement, this guy is automatically the 3rd richest man in South Africa.

Nkosana Makate, who is 44 years old, is a South African who proposed the "Please Call Me" concept to Vodacom in his 20s. His idea, which was a world-first, consisted of sending a free message to other Vodacom users in order to request that they call you, even if you do not have enough credit available to do so.

Nkosana Makate shared the concept with his employer, but never received payment for it. He laid a charge against Vodacom and won the case against them after a 12-year battle. Now he is fighting for the appropriate settlement which many believe is around R70 billion (N1.9 trillion).

Odetokun3:
Makate, Please call me

ValCon888:
That's approximately $4.5bn.
With this judgement, this guy is automatically the 3rd richest man in South Africa.

True dat, just above Patrice Motsepe (mining magnet and CAF president). The power of tech

Omo na please call me give this guy bread

power of creativity.

Makate's story destined for the big screen

It’s being hailed as the ultimate David vs Goliath story of the South African corporate world. One man takes on the might of the telecommunications industry, fights a lonely battle for 21 years, and eventually wins a payout that looks likely to amount to billions of rands.

Makate grew up in Katlehong, east of Johannesburg, and describes a football-mad childhood. “I was a typical South African township boy,” he says.

In 1995 he got his break: a government initiative which required telecommunications companies to train people in the accounting field. Makate was taken on by Vodacom.

Given what was to happen subsequently, it may surprise people to hear that Makate still has warm memories of Vodacom.

“It was a wonderful company,” he says now. “It was my first corporate experience.”

The big idea

As a 24-year-old at Vodacom in 2000, Makate had a girlfriend who was studying at the University of Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape. She didn’t have much money; talking to each other on the phone was a problem. If his girlfriend had no airtime, it was impossible for her to give him a missed call, which was how she could indicate she wanted to reach him.

Makate had an idea. What if there were a free Vodacom service which would enable his girlfriend to send him a standard message asking him to call her? He can remember the exact date the concept came to him: November 22 2000.

He couldn’t flesh out the technical side of how the idea would work. “I’m not an engineer,” he says. What he could provide to Vodacom was the idea, “basically, what I was seeking to achieve”.

Makate took the idea to his manager, who passed it on to Vodacom’s director of product development Philip Geissler. Makate says he had a verbal agreement with Geissler that he would receive compensation for the concept.

Vodacom could see the value of the idea almost immediately. Less than three months later, Geissler was introducing the concept of the Please Call Me to staff, and congratulating Makate in an internal email.

He wrote: “Kenneth [Nkosana] Makate from our finance department came up with this idea a few months ago and brought it to the Product Development Division. We wish to thank Kenneth for bringing his idea to our attention.”

Instant hit

Please Call Me was formally launched in March 2001. It was an instant hit. About 140 000 users took up the service in the first day. Since its introduction, it has been estimated that Please Call Me has brought in at least R70-billion (N1.8 trillion) in revenue for Vodacom.

But if Makate expected his payday, he had a nasty surprise coming. Vodacom, it emerged, had no intention of remunerating Makate for his idea.

Vodacom’s erstwhile chief executive Alan Knott-Craig, who left the company in 2008, went so far as to create a fake origin story for Please Call Me. In his 2009 autobiography Second Is Nothing, he claimed he conceived of the idea when watching two Vodacom security guards attempt to communicate with each other through missed calls.

Makate left Vodacom in 2003 with a heavy heart. “It was depressing,” he says. “I had basically given up.”

In the years to come, Makate would learn just how difficult it would be to claim his due from one of South Africa’s most powerful companies. Lawyers turned him down repeatedly. He often thought about giving up.

“Eventually when I decided to say, ‘No, let me go on,’ I found lawyers who were really brave,” he says.

Makate’s case eventually reached the high court in Johannesburg in 2014. There, more disappointment was in store. The case was dismissed on two grounds: that Geissler had not had the authority to offer Makate compensation for his idea, and that Makate should have launched his claim earlier.

A glimmer of hope, however, was found in the court’s criticism of Knott-Craig’s “greedy” approach.

Vindication

Makate had one shot left: to approach South Africa’s apex court, the Constitutional Court. There, on Tuesday, he finally achieved his vindication. The judgment was unsparing in its criticism of Knott-Craig, referring to him as having created “a false narrative”, an “untrue story” and a “lie”.

It further described Knott-Craig as having “performed dismally” as a witness in the high court and characterised his conduct as “dishonourable”.

Yet Makate says he bears no grudges towards Knott-Craig. “[Vodacom] was a vibrant company. I was happy working there."

The Movie

Makate’s story is one that seems destined for a book, and he confirms that he hopes to complete one by the end of the year. A film is on the cards, too. When asked if he has an actor in mind to play him in the movie, he replies: “I’ll play myself. I’m turning 40, but I still look 24.

E choke.
Davido should find a good lawyer

I'm looking for something to sue Nigerian government




Oil is now $93 per barrel

Lesson learnt:

Please patent your ideas before giving them out.

Oh, Makate....

Please, call me.

Now this is how you win a case. Goddamn that is a retirement fortune

ValCon888:
That's approximately $4.5bn.
With this judgement, this guy is automatically the 3rd richest man in South Africa.

And what happens in South Africa stays in South Africa