How much do you think the MITI Fifth Generation Initiative negatively impacted the Japanese software industry by side-tracking so many educational and corporate initiatives?
I think that program was a good example of a overall inward-facing industrial policy that dominated in Japan in the 1980s.
I'm not sure how much that one program was at fault, but it a great example of many similar misguided policies of the era.
When the feedback from the global markets was removed, most of this kind of planning just stopped working.