Galápagos syndrome affects Japanese cellphone market
Interesting history of why Japanese cell phone makers have not sold their super-advanced phones outside of Japan. It is largely due to technical incompatibility as they have adopted the ‘walled garden’ approach to networks.
Indeed, Japanese makers thought they had positioned themselves to dominate the age of digital data. But Japanese cellphone makers were a little too clever. The industry turned increasingly inward. In the 1990s, they set a standard for the second-generation network that was rejected everywhere else. Carriers created fenced-in Web services, like i-Mode. Those mobile Web universes fostered huge e-commerce and content markets within Japan, but they have also increased the country’s isolation from the global market.
Then Japan quickly adopted a third-generation standard in 2001. The rest of the world dallied, essentially making Japanese phones too advanced for most markets.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/technology/20cell.html?th&emc=th