While that may be the case, the things like this I've experienced have been more along the lines of incompetent management.
In one case I was doing an upgrade on an IPTV distribution network for a cable provider (15+ years ago at this point). This particular segment of subscribers totalled more than 100k accounts. I did validation of the hardware and software rev installed on the routers in question prior to my trip to the data center (2+ hour drive). I informed management that the currently running version on the router wasn't compatible with this hardware rev of card I was upgrading to. I was told that it would in fact work, that we had that same combination of hw/sw running elsewhere. I couldn't find it when I went to go look at other sites. I mentioned it in email prior to leaving I was told to go.
Long story short, the card didn't work, had to back it out. The HA failover didn't work on the downgrade and took down all of those subscribers as the total outage caused a cascading issue with some other gear in this facility. All in all it was during off-peak time of day, but it was a waste of time and customer sat.
The article seems to under represent how advanced and widespread i-mode cell phones were in Japan - over 60% of the population used it in the early 2000s.
I stayed with friends in Japan in 2001 who noted all their friends used email on their handsets rather than have a PC. They also could watch certain broadcast TV channels on their phone which was popular on the train.
The only people I knew with mobile email in my home country were some execs with blackberries.
Did you try using the MAD MP3 decoder, which only relied on fixed point? I remember trying it several times and comparing the audio output to the other decoders and wondering what the deal was. I had a Pentium though and didn't know enough about floating point to understand the issue.
BMW actually seems to be quite intentional with details like this. For those who appreciate thoughtful human-centered design, it quickly becomes clear that many of their choices reflect unusually meticulous work and attention to detail. But I wonder if this is shifting, as fewer people seem to understand the difference.
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