Vodacom shutdown threatened

The Vodacom CEO is being completely stupid here. For his own sake.

The court has issued an order. It cannot be argued with.

If an application for contempt is brought before the court , because the amount was deliberately and clearly unreasonable , that application may be granted.

The CEO may then find himself explaining why he shouldn't be jailed for contempt. "Saving his company money" is not an argument that is going to fly here. He may end up finding himself in the slammer.

Whether money should or shouldn't be paid is a ship that has sailed.
 
retromodcoza said:
If an application for contempt is brought before the court , because the amount was deliberately and clearly unreasonable , that application may be granted.
Click to expand...

That's a big "IF" ... R70B is a totally stupid figure, and I think that Makate has been quoted before that his thinking is in the billions ballpark.

So, with that in mind, what he calls "unreasonable" might actually be tens of millions of rands, which would be totally reasonable.

Personally though I think he'd be lucky to get away covering his legal bills, as the article pointed out, there's legal proof he didn't invent the idea. The real inventor probably has a better case against Makate than Makate has against Vodacom.
 
elvis_presley said:
That's a big "IF" ... R70B is a totally stupid figure, and I think that Makate has been quoted before that his thinking is in the billions ballpark.

So, with that in mind, what he calls "unreasonable" might actually be tens of millions of rands, which would be totally reasonable.

Personally though I think he'd be lucky to get away covering his legal bills, as the article pointed out, there's legal proof he didn't invent the idea. The real inventor probably has a better case against Makate than Makate has against Vodacom.
Click to expand...
As has been said numerous times now who invented it (wasn't MTN either) has no bearing on the issue. Kahn is trying to get his own limelight and obfuscate this fact. He is right in saying you can't invent an idea though, because ideas are worth all the money as that's only when invention can start. MTN's idea was totally stupid, cumbersome, and expensive which is why they lapsed the patent as nobody including themselves were ever going to use it.

As I understand it Vodacom's CEO must determine the amount in the case of a deadlock. I.e. based on facts and figures with Makate's original 15%. He can't just decide a figure based on feels. With that said the R70bn is just as outrageous as the R10m and both sides have completely lost perspective here. In hindsight a fair figure would be in the ballpark of a few hundred million.
 
R1 is reasonable as it was already invented by someone else.
Any figure Vodacom offers will seem like a slap in the face when you have R70 Billion in your head.
 
Last edited:
Swa said:
both sides have completely lost perspective here. In hindsight a fair figure would be in the ballpark of a few hundred million.
Click to expand...

Hundreds of millions?! WTF? I don't think that's perspective at all. That'll probably be more than the salary bills of the entire team that built the company up from scratch, to the point of where they implemented Please Call Me. A perspective and quantifiable approach would be to take the salary of a top-end marketing guy, see what his salary was for doing the "yebo gogo" or some other gigantically successful campaign and use that as a basis. I'd be surprised if that even got anywhere near a few million.
 
Was Makate an employee of Vodacom? If so, doesn't that make any IP he created while in their employ (during the course of his work) Vodacom's?
 
elvis_presley said:
Hundreds of millions?! WTF? I don't think that's perspective at all. That'll probably be more than the salary bills of the entire team that built the company up from scratch, to the point of where they implemented Please Call Me. A perspective and quantifiable approach would be to take the salary of a top-end marketing guy, see what his salary was for doing the "yebo gogo" or some other gigantically successful campaign and use that as a basis. I'd be surprised if that even got anywhere near a few million.
Click to expand...
Why should salaries have a bearing on it? Vodacom paid way more than R100m in licensing for the tech they use so why should this be any different? They had their chance at the time but paid zero. Now it's known it probably made them a few billion over the years, but not R70bn. The only arguments I see are those who say billion and those who say a few thousand. Nobody is looking at the middle ground.

Answer these questions:
How much (%) is an idea such as this worth?
How much did Vodacom make from it?

FoXtroT said:
Was Makate an employee of Vodacom? If so, doesn't that make any IP he created while in their employ (during the course of his work) Vodacom's?
Click to expand...
Also asked and answered and dealt with by the court.
 
Swa said:
In hindsight a fair figure would be in the ballpark of a few hundred million.
Click to expand...

No, a fair figure would be his legal costs & legal financing to date for all parties current and past to get him to this point and then a royalty per please call me used. The advertising on the please call me SMS's and resultant call revenue are not his invention imho. That should be easily determinable and reasonable.
 
quovadis said:
No, a fair figure would be his legal costs & legal financing to date for all parties current and past to get him to this point and then a royalty per please call me used. The advertising on the please call me SMS's and resultant call revenue are not his invention imho. That should be easily determinable and reasonable.
Click to expand...
That's your opinion. It's not that of the court.
 
Swa said:
Why should salaries have a bearing on it?

Answer these questions:
How much (%) is an idea such as this worth?
How much did Vodacom make from it?
Click to expand...

That's why salaries do have a bearing on it. Companies try new things all the time to bring in business. Input costs to launch initiatives and campaigns that nett the company billions are well known. Nobody can agree on anything, which is why you need to find a comparable, quantifiable analog. I think it's reasonable to look at Please Call Me as a marketing initiative and work backwards.

Makate previously called a R10M offer "crazy" - his expectations are clearly delusional, there's no way this can end well for him.
 
quovadis said:
No, a fair figure would be his legal costs & legal financing to date for all parties current and past to get him to this point and then a royalty per please call me used. The advertising on the please call me SMS's and resultant call revenue are not his invention imho. That should be easily determinable and reasonable.
Click to expand...
He didn't invent it,Vodacom wasn't even first with it
 
RedViking said:
This has nothing to do with who invented it. Get it in your heads.
Click to expand...

If I understand correctly, that is also not what Vodacom argued. They owe him money, mainly because some manager type said they would compensate him.

Compensate him for what, exactly though? He suggested the please call me idea? Right?
So it was something that others have already done, and he then went and suggested that Vodacom do it? How much is that worth?

R10 mil sounds pretty decent imo. Very generous actually.
 
Oh so there IS a 'movement' - I thought it was only a bowel movement. That fool Panzerfaust le Souffle should wind his stupid neck in.
 
It would be nice to shut down Vodacom and hurt them where it hurts the most.

I agree with anything against Vodacom. I favour all the other operators.

Vodacom Operates with very heavy handed tactics and its there way or No way.

Vodacom customers must move away in droves to other operators if they stand with Makate.
 
rwenzori said:
Since I stand against the gold-digger Makate, I'll stay with Vodacom, even though they are not really 'nice people'.
Click to expand...

I think its fair to say R70 Billion is unreasonable.

But pay the guy something decent and settle this matter ?
How long will this drag on for ? It may even take precedence over the Land Expropriation issues ?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X