I just went onto Ricoh's connectivity cafe and it sent me to Canon's homepage. I even went to another PC to see if it does it again. It did. Has anybody else experience this. I did e-mail Ricoh today to let them know.
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It happened to me, too. I just went to the Aficio League, and I see that the link to the CC site is gone, also. It figures. Connectivity Cafe worked well, so of course Ricoh can't leave a good thing alone.
(Edited by Shaja to say that was a cheap shot on my part and I take it back.)
(Edited by Shaja to say that was a cheap shot on my part and I take it back.)
We have a link on our site for CC also
Thanks for pointing out the link on the P4P Hotel site; I didn't know it was there and thankfully it was to the "old" URL.
I got an e-mail reply from Carmine J Baratta, TSC Web Developer, Ricoh Corporation, Technology Solutions Center. Carmine says:
"The Official URL for Connectivity Cafe is http://www.connectivity-cafe.com or http://www.rfg-configurator.com.
"It’s a long story so I will give you the short version. An employee of Ricoh’s hosted the Connectivity Cafe for many years. We decide to move the website in-house and I don’t think that employee, now no longer employed by
Ricoh, was very happy about that decision and pointed the domain name at Canon. I am sorry for the inconvenience and I appreciate your contacting me and thanks for getting the message out on that bulletin board."
"The Official URL for Connectivity Cafe is http://www.connectivity-cafe.com or http://www.rfg-configurator.com.
"It’s a long story so I will give you the short version. An employee of Ricoh’s hosted the Connectivity Cafe for many years. We decide to move the website in-house and I don’t think that employee, now no longer employed by
Ricoh, was very happy about that decision and pointed the domain name at Canon. I am sorry for the inconvenience and I appreciate your contacting me and thanks for getting the message out on that bulletin board."
More inside scoop, if anyone cares.
That Former Employee's name is Jay Burton. He developed the whole configurator on his own and actually put it up in working form before "pitching it" to Ricoh as something they could buy from him. Ricoh claimed that he was an employee and therefore they owned it.
From sketchy third and fourth hand reports, I think Jay and Ricoh reached an agreement under which they paid for the site. Jay stopped working for Ricoh around a year ago.
I don't know what this latest development means.
That Former Employee's name is Jay Burton. He developed the whole configurator on his own and actually put it up in working form before "pitching it" to Ricoh as something they could buy from him. Ricoh claimed that he was an employee and therefore they owned it.
From sketchy third and fourth hand reports, I think Jay and Ricoh reached an agreement under which they paid for the site. Jay stopped working for Ricoh around a year ago.
I don't know what this latest development means.
Why wouldn’t Ricoh just run the site themselves??
Well, initially, they didn't have the right to do so as the employee had developed it (with the help of outside companies) as a stand-alone product, seperate from Ricoh.
I don't know what has changed since that time, so perhaps they've acquired the rights to do so or have decided they legally have the right to take it or have invested the time to duplicate it.
Who knows? =)
I don't know what has changed since that time, so perhaps they've acquired the rights to do so or have decided they legally have the right to take it or have invested the time to duplicate it.
Who knows? =)
Shaja posted:I got an e-mail reply from Carmine J Baratta, TSC Web Developer, Ricoh Corporation, Technology Solutions Center. Carmine says:
"The Official URL for Connectivity Cafe is http://www.connectivity-cafe.com or http://www.rfg-configurator.com.
"It’s a long story so I will give you the short version. An employee of Ricoh’s hosted the Connectivity Cafe for many years. We decide to move the website in-house and I don’t think that employee, now no longer employed by
Ricoh, was very happy about that decision and pointed the domain name at Canon. I am sorry for the inconvenience and I appreciate your contacting me and thanks for getting the message out on that bulletin board."
For those of you who want to know more, I am happy to oblige.
Carmine (great guy by the way) was involved when Ricoh moved the Connectivity Cafe website in-house. Something important that Carmine failed to mention was that once Ricoh took control over the site, they were expected to control everything.
Imagine my surprise when I received word from Carmine that the website was no longer coming up as expected. Sure enough, when I checked it out, the site was not coming up. When I asked Carmine if Ricoh had renewed the domain name, he said he didn't know. Uh oh.
When Ricoh took it over, they, like most large corporations, lost focus on the details. An important detail was that the domain name was up for renewal. Ricoh apparently failed to renew the domain name, leaving the door open for someone else to step in and acquire the domain. Double uh oh.
Once Ricoh lost the domain, they had no control over its use. I believe I know who it was that registered the domain name after it became available for the public to register it. It was between a couple of people who I think liked messing with Ricoh, which is how the domain name got redirected to various other sites at the time. I would never reveal any names, though, since these folks are still in the business.
The surprises did not stop there, however, when I discovered over a year later that the domain name connectivitycafe.com was once again available for public registration. So I registered it. To this day, I still own that domain name. Along with thousands of other names my company manages for clients all over the world.
During the 20+ years I worked for Ricoh, I mostly enjoyed the job. There were a few managers not long before I left Ricoh that confirmed my suspicions that the company was changing, and not for the better. Many more of my suspicions and concerns have been confirmed by reality in the nearly 15 years since I left the company.
Ricoh went through many minor, and several major, changes after I left. I think it is safe to say Ricoh is not the same company it was 'back in the day'. Which is too bad, because until near the end, it was a great place to be. Thanks mostly to the fantastic people who previously made it exactly that.
As the late great Paul Harvey used to say: "Now you know the rest of the story."
awesome thread @Jay C. Burton