Japan's electronics companies once epitomised its national power and denned late-20thcentury consumer technology. Sony introduced the transistor radio and the Walkman. Toshiba was first to mass-produce laptops. Sharp-which got its name from inventing the mechanical pencil in 1915-pioneered solar cells and lcd screens. The companies earned their fortunes from running efficient operations at home that shipped in huge quantities to the West. But the world changed and Japanese technology firms did not keep up. They kept too many low-value activities in high-cost Japan for too long.
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