Even through the late 2000s, Galapagos phones were way more advanced in terms of capabilities than anything available in the west, including the first couple of iPhone generations.
Trouble is, they wouldn't or couldn't sell them anywhere else, and eventually the rest of the world outpaced them and ate their lunch. Yes, the radio standards were incompatible... Would it have been so hard to make an international model? I think they just didn't feel like they needed to.
This pattern keeps happening where Japanese companies develop amazing products for their domestic market, and then staunchly refuse to bother selling them elsewhere, allowing global competitors to win in the long term.
Trouble is, they wouldn't or couldn't sell them anywhere else, and eventually the rest of the world outpaced them and ate their lunch. Yes, the radio standards were incompatible... Would it have been so hard to make an international model? I think they just didn't feel like they needed to.
This pattern keeps happening where Japanese companies develop amazing products for their domestic market, and then staunchly refuse to bother selling them elsewhere, allowing global competitors to win in the long term.