I think when it comes down to it, every worthy competitor is exactly 1 year late.

1) MS was right on target time with WP7, however it was buggy and it should've been the WP7.5 instead. MS sealed their grave when they decided that 800x480 was the only resolution and QSD the only processor.

2) I can't decide if WinRT is a year "too late" or simply just sucks.

3) Palm was sold to HP for a ridiculously bargain price of $1.2B. This would've been the perfect acquisition for Nokia, and a perfect partner for them (much better than Intel). HP tried to use Palm's and developed the TouchPad Tablet. But it was too late, as Android began to take the "cheap or alternate tablet" category. They were a year late.

4) The RIM PlayBook was an excellent tablet. It was very buggy and limited to begin with. Its version 2 OS which arrived a year later should've been its release firmware. The PlayBook should've been released at least a few weeks before the iPad 2. Oh, and fix up the hardware like small weirdly arranged buttons, gigantic bezel, and somewhat thick profile.

5) BBX (ahem BB10) is very innovative. It comes on great hardware. It doesn't lack too many Apps, and has a form to solve it. However, its lackluster compared to the iPhone 5, HTC One X, and NOTE1/2. It could've competed nicely against the Gnex, but the delay was, you guessed it, a year too late.

6) AMD has decided to get in on the low-powered processor market. The Tegra2 SoC, the first (and slowest) dualcore processor based on ARM's Cortex A9 was so much ahead (time-wise) in market to Qualcomm and Samsung... that they literally paved a way for themselves in the market. AMD could've (very easily) beaten Nvidia at every turn. They could've owned a large chunk of the mobile processor market, the market which continues to rapidly grow as the x86 market continues stagnantly.

7) Nokia was a year late with the roll out of the N8. The "first" Symbian smartphone, which had the best camera and could've provided them with the needed the profits to stay healthy/afloat.

8) Nokia was also (at least) a year late with Symbian v3 (Anna) release, and utilizing Qt for an App ecosystem.

9) MeeGo was never released, however Maemo 6 was at least a year late. The N9 would've been a good contender against the SGS i9000 but a little weak next to the iPhone 4 and Motorola Atrix.

10) Jolla is a year late. Many of the MeeGo/Qt advocates have moved on to other platforms. Now there's another "decent" option to move to (BBX). Jolla won't have the strong support it would've gotten a year ago.

...Do you guys have examples of anymore?