Please Call Me

source

The please call me message service on your phone is not somehting I have used but I know my kids used it often whilst they were at school. This was mainly for users who had no money on their phones yet could still stay in contact.

Kenneth Makate used to work for Vodacom and knowing how big companies work they take your ideas and give you tuppance in return. This was back in 2001 and 20 years on there was a court ruling issued this week that Vodacom pay him 5% of the profits plus profits on the calls made returning the call me message. He swears blind the agreement or verbal agreement was 15% back then and who is to say he isn't telling the truth. No one would have guessed this was going to entail billions and billions in earnings.

Not surprisingly Vodacom are squirming and will ask for an appeal as this is serious amounts of profits involved. Back then no one quite knew how much revenue a phone app would generate and this has become a business on it's own today. Cell phones were everywhere as mass adoption was taking off in Africa in the 2000's. The majority of the masses had no contracts but they all had phones using pay as you go which is why if your staff needed to talk to you they used this particular app.

If you had a good idea and you are working for a company I suppose you sell that idea today as back then your employers would just expect that you give it freely because that is how most of us thought. Things change however as ideas are money and good ideas are big money. This was all before anyone even knew about what crypto was and any thought ideas could generate billions as everyone thought $1 million was big money in those days. How times change as what is $1 million today as it is nothing special?

Vodacom offered Makate R47 million 5 years ago as a settlement which is tuppance if one calculates how much revenue this app made. In this case it is not only the app as this created more calls generating more revenue. 2016 the figure was around R70 billion and another R130 billion in calls totaling R200 Billion. Having billions in any currency is a big number unless you live in Zimbabwe.

Vodacom offering R47 million is going to look like pocket change when the final settlement is calculated. A figure 100 x bigger most likely in the region of R5 - 10 Billion ($700 million) which is a sum definitely worth waiting and holding out for even if it is way overdue.

I think we all enjoy stories where the small guy gets what he deserves even if it has taken time through the courts. How things have changed as putting this all in writing in an article back in 2001 no one would have dreamt this was a Billion Dollar idea. Most people I know today give you a missed call if they have no credit and don't use this app so it was relevant for those 15 or so years which generated all that money.

Posted Using LeoFinance ^Beta