> Surely you know better than the NYT reporters.
I don’t know the origin or the context of the Japan story in the article, but, yes, it seems I am better informed about the matter than whoever stated that. Maybe someone mentioned it in passing to mean aspiring Asian firms might have filled the gap. Japan was, of course, one of the most prominent electronics power houses at that time, so it could have easily popped up in one’s mind. But the fact is, their computer industry was never poised to take over the world. Their products were highly customized for the domestic market, which created ever increasing gap of compatibility against the rest of the world. In some sense, it is admirable to build such a self-sufficient industry and ecosystem all on their own. I doubt their offerings would have appealed to western consumers in meaningful ways.
It’s not that I have greater insights into these sort of things. I just happen to know a bit about what was going on with Japanese computer industry at that time.