Please Call Me battle

In other news... Vodacom to start charging its customers for the "Please Call Me" service.
 
You can be rest assured that any employee that thinks of something now will keep it to themselves. Or drop a mail to the opposing provider :)
 
So this is another one of those cases where the large corporate company will rather spend a couple of million on the lawsuit than to pay the poor guy a little something. I hate big companies that walks over people just because they can afford to.
 
Just give him R1 Million, sorted.
If other have a relevant claim, pay them aswell, as long as the product innovation comes in and helps the company, certain individuals should be compensated.
Id rather have 100 new proposals to make a company better than having none and both the individual and the company suffers.
 
I wish Nkosana Makate, all the best ....

I personally feel he should be compensated, but thats my personal view....
 
i hope he wins. vodacom should of just paid him 1 million rand and swept it under the rug, now they are using thousands of rands to fight a law suite they may not win, and potentially losing future customers. The guy was in finance...he had nothing to do with the development field, and if thats how vodacom treat their own employees...well then im sorry but i would not recommend them to anyone. There you go...1 customer lost.....next.....
 
i left vodacom anyways...funny thing is i have no loyalty whatsoever to any of the cellphone companies. they give us nothing except an expensive service which we now unfortunately have become completely reliant on.

wen my contract dies...i dont care wot company it is, the best deal will have my signature. LOYALTY = 0 why? they have given me no reason to be loyal
 
personally I find it a very annoying invention. He should be put up agianst a wall with the person that invented the sms voting scheme and shot.
 
personally I find it a very annoying invention. He should be put up agianst a wall with the person that invented the sms voting scheme and shot.

The please call me has saved my bum a couple of times before. I might find it annoying now but it's very useful to high school kids who can't always afford to recharge. Besides, isn't there an option to disable it?
 
Hope he wins millions.. Big companies always want their staff to look for new innovative ideas but never want to reward them when they do come up with these ideas. I feel if a companies wants rights to everything you think of and claim it as these then they need to pay top dollar no make that pound.

If they were paying him a fair salary he wouldnt be asking for anything..
 
So, Vodacom sends 20 million of these things per day... I don't have the foggiest idea what the revenue is on something like that, but at a nett 0.001c/message the nett revenue is R7.3m a year. Add to that the revenue of the calls generated by the messages...

Somewhat stingy, aren't we?

But then again, if you have enough money to waste it on something like the Vodacam Stormers or the Vodacom Cheetahs...
 
You have to wonder how Google rewards employees for the ideas they come up with. Just look at how successfull their products are, sure its part of their job description but still. A slice of the monetory pie is cheaper (and most importantly ethical) than wasting time and money on maliciously conjured bad ideas.

I really hope this guy gets his due reward although it is unlikely. Companies would have to rethink their stance taking credit and profits from employees ideas. Best of luck to you Nkosana Makate.
 
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It's ridiculous at the profit Vodacom is making out of this product not to reward the person who came up with it, even if his contact specifically stated that any ideas he came up with were the companies IP.
He deserves it and they would get an influx of suggestions from other employees that would improve their business and make them even more money.
Whatever he's asking for, it's worth it to avoid both the bad publicity and to engender a work environment where people want to assist.

It's a pity you can't patent something that's already in common usage, if he could and he won the court case, I'd take Vodacom for everything they were worth.
 
good luck to him, the chances of winning are slim, maybe need to raise more of a stink they might bend a bit then
 
I don't see how it can possibly be "within the scope of his employment" to do anything tecnical or product related when "the scope" of his employment was specifically financial, no matter how your contract is worded. You also have to take into account what the government laws say about employment: if you're employed as a marketer, you cannot be put to task as a doctor and it still be considered as "within the scope of your employment." It just does not make sense. Any lawyer with half a brain will rip Vodacom to pieces. (IMHO, since I'm no expert.)
 
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Notice to all Vodacom employees:

In order to receive full compensation for all your cellular innovations, please forward all your innovations and the relevant non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to [email protected]

Just kidding!!! :D:D:D
 
I hope he beats Vodacom in court, and the court orders them to pay way more than just a million (plus cost)

about time big companies gets a slap.... geezzzz I hate big corps... they get away with any and everything, and theres nothing one can do...
 
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