Internal Vodacom emails reveal what really happened with Please Call Me

Do I understand this correct? His manager requests ideas. He looks at what Vodafone in the US offers and copies the name e-mailing the idea as if he made up the idea.
There was a similar US product on Vodafone called Buzzer. Makete sends an idea for you guessed it "Buzzer product" to his manager. He could at least been more original with the name.

How Vodacom lost this court case, they must have had the worse ever lawyers who were so arrogant they didn't want to even give him an inch of credit then ended up in a position of possibly losing billions.
 
/waiting for Vodacom to release figures showing net loss of .1c per PCM sent, and presenting him with an invoice.... :D
 
lol Vodacom.

They are getting more embarrassing than the ZAR exchange rate.
 
The way I see it is, if the CEO or any Exec got extra bucks for this "idea", I don't see why they shouldn't have done the same to this guy. Also considering that they reenforced the promise to him, and kept consulting him for further ideas, like what the service name should be, etc. Sharks...:sick:
 
But here's the part that I don't get.. Most employment contracts include clauses that outright claim ownership of all work related products developed during course of employment. Heck most things u do on their laptop is theirs if they really get into it.. Or in work hrs.

2ndly.. Ideas are only worth something if developed. A conceptual idea has to date never been sold for millions let alone billions and I wanna what investors line up to pay for it where your only product is an idea statement/document and you require funding where in you don't give up most of your equity as.. Technically you have nothing but an idea.

In this case he didn't even implement it, he didn't add adverts based on what I see in leak.. So .. Yah, good luck.
 
krycor said:
But here's the part that I don't get.. Most employment contracts include clauses that outright claim ownership of all work related products developed during course of employment. Heck most things u do on their laptop is theirs if they really get into it.. Or in work hrs.
Click to expand...

Recently (last 5 to 10 years), this statement about the ownership and product development would be true.
But, back in 1999, employment contracts (the ones that I saw from South African companies) didn't have clauses around IP and ownership.
The first time I started seeing clauses like this was in 2005 to 2006.

Maybe other members on the forum can indicate if they had these clauses in their contracts in the 1990.
 
Ah ok.. Explains as my contracts have always contained IP clauses of some sort (excl work constraints which I never allow).
 
Give him the money, then invoice him for office space, use of resources, computer, network, coffee, office/desk space, parking for a bit more. It seems this is now treated like it was his idea, private, whilst working at Vodacom...doing private stuff at work?
 
Should've know something was up when his "how I created it" article was two paragraphs basically saying "my girlfriend didn't have airtime and she needed a way to contact me".

That said, how difficult a product is Please Call Me to come up with? Basically an SMS saying "please call me"?!
 
Hamster said:
Should've know something was up when his "how I created it" article was two paragraphs basically saying "my girlfriend didn't have airtime and she needed a way to contact me".

That said, how difficult a product is Please Call Me to come up with? Basically an SMS saying "please call me"?!
Click to expand...

So you're saying if he didn't come up with the 'idea' someone else would have?
 
Sinbad said:
/waiting for Vodacom to release figures showing net loss of .1c per PCM sent, and presenting him with an invoice.... :D
Click to expand...

freddster said:
Give him the money, then invoice him for office space, use of resources, computer, network, coffee, office/desk space, parking for a bit more. It seems this is now treated like it was his idea, private, whilst working at Vodacom...doing private stuff at work?
Click to expand...

Lol, seems there is other ways to "sort" this out...
 
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