Where Road Map Fits

Road Map shows the way to True North via Consecutive Campaigns. The interactive graph V² Agile Layer Model below shows where Road Map fits in. Click on each layer to learn how it works.

How Road Map Works

How to reach True North via Consecutive Campaigns.

The Big Journey Metaphor

Say you want to walk on foot from Germany to the Himalayas. This is a long journey that requires some planning. You will break the long journey into smaller parts. You may call them campaigns. Each Campaign begins where the previous one ended. To not loose overview you map them out in the Road Map. When travelling through wasteland with no orientation available you will look to the True North Star to find your way. Each campaign still covers a significant distance, so you set Milestones to have smaller, more manageable targets. And each milestone is further broken down in smaller targets for every week, which you call weekly Sprints.

V² Works the Same

V²Agile with V²Road Map works exactly the same.

With V² True North we describe where we want to be when our journey is done. The V²Road Map shows the way to reach our V² True North via consecutive Campaigns. A campaign is a group of Milestones and lasts about 3 months while focusing all our efforts.

This document is the Road Map, as it list each Campaign Target and how each campaign is connected to its predecessor and successor.

Big Overview

We started our journey in summer 2011. When looking back all that we already have accomplished the journey ahead does not look so daunting anymore. In fact we are leaving the critical stage of building the Foundation of V² and we are about to start the Introduction stage by launching our V² web site and begin shipping our first product!

• 2011-2016: Foundation
• 2016-2018: Introduction
• 2018+: Mainstream

Next 2 Years

Overview

(*1) The Press and Shop campaign is special in that it will run in parallel with Campaigns 4 … 6

Details

Campaign 1 V²Site Launch is about creating the V² web site that publishes our vision, how we will get there, who we are, and how this helps you. We also create the tools to make contribution very fast and easy. This helps us work faster and will attract more contributors to help V² move faster. It gives you very easy methods to report bugs and request features via V² Flow Button and in turn provides us with the tools to track, rate, and close these issues very efficiently. Finally we create a work flow system that guides contributors when working down their tasks and issues to deliver work so that it fits in directly without lengthy reworks.

Connection 1-2 You have heard of “Sitting on Shoulders of Giants”, only this time the community is building the Giant ourselves, growing it with each consecutive campaign. Campaign 1 V²Site launch creates all the tools that make working together as a community more focused and more efficient. In Campaign 2 we are already using these tools to the full extent, thus greatly increasing our speed by enabling automation. The new management tools also allow us to grow the number of contributors. We welcome the V²Shop-Midwest team: Bobby, Karen, and Tom!

Campaign 2 Community Promotion: V²Case has been developed with the Community. This is our opportunity to give back with community discounts on the V² Trailblazer Products ViCase and ViPC. Check out these innovative products in the V²Shop. Help us promote the V² Shop by telling your friends in order to help us reach our stretch goal and you will earn free bonus products.

Connection 2-3 Campaign 2 grew awareness and availability of V² Trailblazer Products to the point of piquing the interest of press and shops. Campaign 3 will actively approach them with press releases and new products. Press coverage and increased availability is critical to the continued growth of the V² movement.

Campaign 3 Press & Shop Campaign: Ready-built Mini and All-In-One PCs are becoming available in major stores, such as Amazon, Newegg and eBay. If you are (or want to be) a shop owner we have tutorials and case studies on how to add ViCase or ViPC to your existing store or even how to build one. The resulting increase in availability will trigger some of the press to realize that V² Movement is at the beginning of bigger changes which will improve the situation for users and makers alike. Consequently we hope that press coverage will include both V²Trailblazer Products and their open standards.

Connection 3-4 The Press & Shop Campaign has lasted for half a year. Its first major news is the availability of V² Trailblazer Products in major online stores. But one major news story cannot carry for half a year. This is where the introduction of V²Case Tiny and V²Case Small come into play. They will add major news every two months during this period. And each new case will introduce several new ViPC computers, each spread out two weeks apart.

Campaign 4 V²Case Tiny shrinks all the goodness of ViCase / ViPC to three Liters, effectively making the first ultra portable modular Workstation PC build using Desktop Parts. This campaign is about shipping the first golden samples, getting reviews, and incorporating the feedback into new and improved shipping Trailblazer Products ViCase and ViPC.

Connection 4-5 We are in the middle of the Press and Shop campaign. Frequently introducing new products keeps us in the press and increases the interest of shops. V²Case Small follows in these footsteps.

Campaign 5 V²Case Small is introducing the V² Modular PC to the High End Gaming Consumer Market. Its key feature is the support of the GTX 1080 gaming graphics card. This further expands the market share of V² Modular PC.

Connection 5-6 OEMs are about shipping PCs in quantities. The PC Consumer Market is significantly larger than the workstation PC market. The introduction of V²Case Small opens the V² Modular PC to it. An important step to be attractive to OEMs when we exhibit at Computex Taipei.

Campaign 6 Computex Taipei in June 2017 is the biggest computer show tailored to the OEM. Prior to the show we will complete all V²Standards needed for any OEM to develop their own V² compatible Mini or All-In-One PC. All license agreements are ready to provide the necessary legal foundation to OEMs. V²Case and V²PC will be the first community developed, open source Mini and All-In-One computer system. As such it comes with accessories that are compatible between different computer models made by different brands. V² exhibits at Computex, demonstrating available standards, cases, PC’s and RDKs (Rapid Development Kits) to the press and to the industry.

Connection 6-7 The target of V² Modular PC is to make them mainstream. That means they become low cost and available in the shop around the corner. OEMs have the power to do that. Exhibiting V² Modular PC at Computex got us a foot in the door to OEMs. The OEM Asia Tour will get us in front of marketing people and engineers of OEMs. They are the ones who will make OEM versions of V² Modular PC happen.

Campaign 7 OEMs have the power to make the V² Mini and All-In-One PCs mainstream; to put them into the shop around your corner. We will demo V² with working products on our OEM Asia Tour in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. We will exhibit in major cities. OEMs can book our visit to their site, reducing cost and interruptions to train their marketing people and engineers on V² Modular Mini PC. We will bring OEM RDK’s for the engineers to start Rapid Development. We also offer an “Open House” in Guangzhou for OEM developers to visit us at any time to get answers to their questions directly from the people who created V² Open Modular PC.

Connection 7-8 This is the beginning of the transition period from V²Case to V²Dock. The introduction of V²Dock sees the end of the V²Case Trailblazer Products grace period.

Campaign 8 V²Dock is introducing the world’s first Open Source, modular docking station. The ideal docking station or expansion to the V²Modular PC, tablet PC or notebook. Add powerful RAID or GPU cards to your small computer or connect power, displays, mouse, keyboard, and accessories with just one cable when you return with your computer / tablet to your desk. Connect your small computer to docking stations regardless of make or model. This works vice versa; keep using your docking station when buying a new small PC. Its modular design will allow you to upgrade aging parts resulting in a service life spanning that of many of your PCs.

Connection 8-9 Campaign 9 marks the end of the transition period of V²Case to V²Dock.

Campaign 9 ViCase Open Source As soon as ViDock Trailblazer Products sales covers the operational cost of the V² organization we will end the V² Trailblazer Products grace period. It means that we will lift all copyright and registered designs from ViCase and ViPC, opening their designs completely to any form of 1:1 reproduction. This includes publication of the 3D files for the ViCase. Anyone can then go ahead and CNC cut or 3D print an original ViCase. 3D files are published in FreeCAD. PCBs in KiCAD. CNC files in G-Code. License in open source under CC. We are expecting this to give the V² movement another push by encouraging support of the 3D Printing and CNC cut communities.

Note: V²Case is the Standard for an open mini and All-In-One PC. It always has been and always will be free and open source. ViCase is but one industrial design of V²Case. We named them Trailblazer Products as they paved the way to make V²Case mainstream. They have served many roles, such as demonstrating what V²Case can do, RDKs for OEMs. And it was our sole source of income. As such we protected our design with copyrights and registered designs. Now that ViDock is providing sufficient income to the V²Organization we are in a position to also release all design files of ViCase to the growing pool of V² Open Source files and designs, continuing to grow its value and versatility for the open source community.

Campaign 10+ Growing V²Dock: From this point on our activities will be focused on V²Dock, expanding the range of docking station types. This includes increasing the number of protocols you can run over the V²Dock cable, increasing the lengths of the V²Dock cables, and shrinking the connector size. Approach and cooperate with open source projects to include the open source PCI Express docking stations. Projects such as Arduino, Raspberry Pie, Open Source Mobile Phone and Tablet projects all are good candidates.