Final answer:
Language and cultural barriers were Japan's greatest hindrance to the development of software innovations appropriate for world markets.
Step-by-step explanation:
The greatest hindrance to the development of software innovations appropriate for world markets in Japan was Language and cultural barriers.
Developing software and hardware that could function in East Asian languages presented a challenge, as keyboards and cell phone screens were well adapted to alphabet-based systems used in the West but not suitable for logogram-based languages like those used in East Asia.
These language and cultural barriers hindered the diffusion of technologies to East Asia and slowed down the development of software innovations for world markets.