Tom Mullaney on Alphabets, Chinese Characters, and Computing

As a non-native Chinese speaker, I have to agree that using the IME can make conversation very fast. I can reduce many popular sentences down to only a few button presses. However the author has completely ignored Bopomofo and Cangjie, popular in Taiwan and Hong Kong respectively.

But as for it driving innovation? The way our QWERTY Latin input works now it is good enough whereas without an IME Chinese would have to type in Pinyin or use massive keyboard. So the incentive to innovate isn't as great but implying that will slow down Latin based IT doesn't really make sense.

According to that thesis Japan should be way ahead of China.

They have the same input difficulties, but way longer to deal with them.

Nothing about the Chinese writing system is a driver for innovation. Chinese innovation comes from the economic boom and a big drive to advance.