Bob W wrote: > A few years ago when the word was still relatively recent as a > metaphor [...]
In various areas of industry, science, or technology roadmaps were defined long time ago (more than just a few years ago). E.g. "semiconductor industry roadmap" . > Er, so how is that different from a plan? > A real road map shows you a multitude of different ways of getting > from one place to another, or many other places. Indeed, usually what is thought as a roadmap is not necessarily a linear sequence of events, but rather a general direction of development together with a bunch of milestones that are expected to be achieved (often without saying how). Usually such a roadmap is much broader than a plan, but at the same it doesn't necessarily contain a detailed "plan" how the milestones should be reached. So, the term "roadmap" in this context has some flavor of a wish-list. It is a type of plan, but a bit vague one. The goal of a roadmap is to outline the direction of development and the plausible milestones, in order to inform various parties involved and to help creating specific plans of development. A plan (unless it is one of those "plans" that are just plans) usually has a reasonably defined list of goals and a list/sequence of actions that need to be taken to reach the goal. An example of the roadmap for magnetic recording industry would contain the desired memory areal density (currently 1 Terabit per sq. inch.) for non-volatile memory, some short access time, etc. It may contain approximate time mark, but it is a wish list. The companies like Hitachi and Seagate have their plans on developing certain products which in general are trying to follow the roadmap, but may differ from it. In case of Pentax, their roadmap is trying to show the general direction of development (DA, DFA and DA* lenses), and certain milestones (approximate focal lengths of the lenses). In general, some of those lenses may not have been really planned yet in the beginning, when the roadmap is released, while some other, less prominent lenses may not be indicated on the roadmap. So, in summary, a roadmap here is an approximate plan that may not have all details worked out, some sort of a wish-list. Thus, don't get frustrated if some of the "planned" lenses will not materialize, and when some unplanned lenses like 18-250 will show up. Igor -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
