That's interesting.

Looks cool, but I suspect it’ll be very heavy as internal gear hubs tend to be. Might be a winner, though, especially for flatish TT.

I don't see this gaining any real traction on the road market and am confused why this wasn't launched as an mountain bike product.

For on road uses the front mech appear to offer a much better solution. Having commuted on a Brompton for a number of years internal gears are a not headache free and far harder to service than front mechs. However front mechs aren't available on a lot of full suspension mountain bikes for other reasons. The 'solution' has been massive cassettes that weigh a ton, have big jumps and cost a fortune. This sort of system would allow the use of lighter, less expensive cassettes with close gear spacing without compromising the suspension or tire clearance. Ideally you link the system to an electronic mech and set of syncro shifting so it just ran through the gears in series with a single shifter