Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      New platform helps homeowners avoid delays in property sales

      17 June 2025

      Vodacom CEO Joosub bags R71m in pay – but taxman will take a big cut

      17 June 2025

      Meta bets $72-billion on AI – and investors love it

      17 June 2025

      Major rift opens between Microsoft and OpenAI

      17 June 2025

      The little-known company disrupting Eskom’s monopoly

      16 June 2025
    • World

      Samsung plots health data hub to link users and doctors in real time

      17 June 2025

      Yahoo tries to make its mail service relevant again

      13 June 2025

      Qualcomm shows off new chip for AI smart glasses

      11 June 2025

      Trump tariffs to dim 2025 smartphone shipments

      4 June 2025

      Shrimp Jesus and the AI ad invasion

      4 June 2025
    • In-depth

      Grok promised bias-free chat. Then came the edits

      2 June 2025

      Digital fortress: We go inside JB5, Teraco’s giant new AI-ready data centre

      30 May 2025

      Sam Altman and Jony Ive’s big bet to out-Apple Apple

      22 May 2025

      South Africa unveils big state digital reform programme

      12 May 2025

      Is this the end of Google Search as we know it?

      12 May 2025
    • TCS

      TechCentral Nexus S0E1: Starlink, BEE and a new leader at Vodacom

      8 June 2025

      TCS+ | The future of mobile money, with MTN’s Kagiso Mothibi

      6 June 2025

      TCS+ | AI is more than hype: Workday execs unpack real human impact

      4 June 2025

      TCS | Sentiv, and the story behind the buyout of Altron Nexus

      3 June 2025

      TCS | Signal restored: Unpacking the Blue Label and Cell C turnaround

      28 May 2025
    • Opinion

      Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

      2 June 2025

      South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

      2 June 2025

      Digital giants boost South African news media – and get blamed for it

      29 May 2025

      Solar panic? The truth about SSEG, fines and municipal rules

      14 April 2025

      Data protection must be crypto industry’s top priority

      9 April 2025
    • Company Hubs
      • Africa Data Centres
      • AfriGIS
      • Altron Digital Business
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Group
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • Braintree
      • CallMiner
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • Domains.co.za
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • Iris Network Systems
      • LSD Open
      • NEC XON
      • Network Platforms
      • Next DLP
      • Ovations
      • Paracon
      • Paratus
      • Q-KON
      • SkyWire
      • Solid8 Technologies
      • Telit Cinterion
      • Tenable
      • Vertiv
      • Videri Digital
      • Wipro
      • Workday
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud services
      • Contact centres and CX
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Electronics and hardware
      • Energy and sustainability
      • Enterprise software
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Lifestyle
      • Motoring
      • Public sector
      • Retail and e-commerce
      • Science
      • SMEs and start-ups
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » Telecoms » ‘Please call me’ battle – Vodacom vs Makate in court as final showdown begins

    ‘Please call me’ battle – Vodacom vs Makate in court as final showdown begins

    The “please call me” drama is finally nearing its conclusion, 16 years after Nkosana Makate began his legal fight with Vodacom.
    By Nkosinathi Ndlovu21 November 2024
    Twitter LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp Email Telegram Copy Link
    News Alerts
    WhatsApp

    'Please call me' battle - Vodacom vs Makate in court as final showdown beginsThe “please call me” drama is finally nearing its conclusion, 16 years after Nkosana Makate first began court proceedings against Vodacom Group, his former employer.

    The constitutional court on Thursday began hearing arguments in the high stakes battle between Vodacom and Makate, the man who the same court previously found had invented the “please call me” SMS callback request service while working at the mobile operator.

    “Please call me” (PCM) is a popular cellular service in South Africa that allows users with limited or no airtime to ask someone else with airtime to call them.

    The exercise to determine the impact that the PCM idea had on Vodacom’s revenue was complex

    Vodacom legal representative Wim Trengrove on Thursday told South Africa’s highest court that Makate’s assertion that his development of the PCM idea entitles him to compensation proportionate to all the revenue Vodacom derived from the product over its lifetime is not correct.

    In an opening address to the panel of nine constitutional court judges, Trengrove said MTN beat Vodacom to the punch by releasing a PCM-type service first, diluting the value of Makate’s idea. Former MTN contractor Ari Kahn has repeatedly said he invented PCM while working for Vodacom’s biggest competitor. His invention was called Callme.

    “Mr Makate developed the idea of a ‘please call me’ service and nothing I say should detract from the value and significance of the idea. Vodacom then took the idea and developed a product,” said Trengrove. “It is worthy of generous compensation because it was a good idea, but its novelty was diluted when PCM was released by MTN.”

    Rejected

    In a previous judgment, the constitutional court had ordered Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub to determine fair compensation for Makate.

    According to Trengrove, this determination – an amount of R47-million, which was firmly rejected by Makate – should be considered by the constitutional court, given that even if Makate had not shared the PCM idea with Vodacom, the company would have emulated what MTN was doing and launched a product anyway.

    Trengrove said, too, that Makate’s PCM idea was fundamentally different to the PCM product that Vodacom eventually built. He argued that these two factors mad it unreasonable to assign all the credit for the revenues derived from PCM to Makate’s idea.

    Read: ‘Please call me’ battle: YeboYethu warns of dire consequences for BEE

    With the matter of whether or not Makate came up with the PCM idea long settled by the courts, the chief debate in the constitutional court hearing is on the appropriate model that ought to be used to compensate him for his idea. Vodacom is challenging a February 2024 supreme court of appeal judgment that ordered it to compensate Makate at a rate between 5% and 10% of the revenues generated by PCM over 18 years.

    Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub

    Trengrove said the exercise to determine the impact that the PCM idea had on Vodacom’s revenue was complex. Part of the debate centred on how to determine that a call was genuinely triggered by a PCM request since some calls backs are made within an hour, and others within a day or even a week.

    He cited the example of a parent who needs to fetch a child from school after a sports event but does not know when the activity will end. The child sending a PCM to the parent may be redundant since the parent will call the child anyway to find out when they will be done.

    “What we don’t know is whether that call would have been made anyway, even if the PCM message had not been sent. So, you cannot say the call triggered by the PCM was an additional call,” said Trengrove.

    What we don’t know is whether that call would have been made anyway, even if the PCM message had not been sent

    Trengrove said in the five-year period following the introduction of PCM, Vodacom’s total voice revenue increased because of a concurrent increase in its subscriber base. During the same period, he argued, revenue per subscriber did not increase as it should have if PCM had been the trigger of additional voice revenue.

    Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub raised this concern with Makate’s team and, according to Trengrove, Makate had no solutions except to say that Joosub should “do his best” to make a fair determination, leading to Joosub making an assumption that 30% of those voice revenues were the result of PCM.

    Vodacom asked the constitutional court to overturn the supreme court judgment so it can get the “fair hearing we never had”. Alternatively, it wants the case referred back to the supreme court for review.

    The matter continues on Thursday, with Makate’s legal team scheduled to give its heads of argument.  — (c) 2024 NewsCentral Media

    Get breaking news from TechCentral on WhatsApp. Sign up here

    Don’t miss:

    Vodacom to fight latest ‘please call me’ judgment

     

     



    Nkosana Makate Shameel Joosub Vodacom
    Subscribe to TechCentral Subscribe to TechCentral
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email Copy Link
    Previous ArticleBookmarks | WhatsApp will finally let you unsubscribe from business marketing spam
    Next Article ‘Please call me’: Makate team hits back at Vodacom

    Related Posts

    Vodacom CEO Joosub bags R71m in pay – but taxman will take a big cut

    17 June 2025

    TechCentral Nexus S0E2: South Africa’s digital battlefield

    16 June 2025

    MVNO boom is reshaping South Africa’s mobile market

    12 June 2025
    Company News

    7 benefits of social media integration in WordPress

    17 June 2025

    Paratus Zimbabwe and PowerTel strike milestone deal

    17 June 2025

    Huawei Watch Fit 4 Series: smarter sensors, sharper design, stronger performance

    13 June 2025
    Opinion

    Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

    2 June 2025

    South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

    2 June 2025

    Digital giants boost South African news media – and get blamed for it

    29 May 2025

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2025 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.