| >The SD Card was developed by two Japanese companies (Panasonic and Toshiba) and Sandisk. Yes, but that is after Toshiba threw away NAND flash technology saying Intel invented it (yes, really...) and Sandisk went and picked up free real estate. Not to mention Panasonic and Toshiba basically got roped into marketing what was Euro-American tech: MMC, SD card's predecessor, was invented by Sandisk and Siemens. Sony meanwhile never got on board until the bitter end with MemoryStick. >VHS is another Japanese standard, adopted by multiple manufacturers. VHS is actually an exception and exemplifies what happens IF (and that's a big if) Japanese companies can be convinced to work together on something bigger than anything they could individually achieve. There are other examples like Nintendo and the wider Japanese video game industry sharing and protecting patents for each other, or Nissin (Cup Noodle!) giving away their trade secret to kickstart the instant noodle market and improve food supply in the immediate post-war era. Sadly, these things don't happen that often. >Then there's the MSX standard... That's actually a Microsoft invention which was co-marketed with ASCII Corp. If it wasn't obvious by now, what seemingly "Japanese" international standards we do get are usually not Japanese at all having leadership or core involvement from the rest of the west. eg: Blu-Ray involved Phillips and HD-DVD involved Warner Brothers, among others. This actually goes to a sibling comment[1] I made here, which is that stagnant or failing Japanese companies are very likely to explode into success if unshackled from Japanese culture. Japanese are amazing inventors and innovators, but Japanese are also horrible pioneers and trailblazers. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41876563 |