The first time I got to this area of the game it worked, but on subsequent games the option does not appear. I have tried saving and restarting the game and it still didn’t appear.
Simply because of one simple fact.
The requirements are checked periodically instead of (what you seem to assume) every single ingame day.
The same way you get messages about moving office.
From the garage to the first office the requirement is met pretty fast and the game fastly tells the player he can move on. If the player hits “Not Now” the game rechecks after some time. How long it waits is nowhere specified explicitly, but it is at least 10 weeks as far as I’ve seen.
The exact same way the buy new computers (Stage 3), the moving to the big office (Stage 4) and the building of R&D Lab / Hardware Lab is treated.
If for some reason the game skips the message it will recheck afterwards and grant the advance option.
Nontheless this ‘some reason’ has to be hunted down and fixed.
you need a Design (not tech) specialist for the R&D lab.
ah i see woops i forgot that