This are the options, feel free to add one:
1-Alias woun’t do a thing, they like to buy stuff to see them fail (they do know the bussiness, but they are more worried with maya and 3d max).
2-As most people already use BODYPAINT for polypainting, and Mudbox will bring better integration with maya and 3dmax, Zbrush is already in the past.
3-With Zapplink you don’t need bodypaint, and most people will not change to another package. Specailly because Zbrush has other tools (wich we think mudbox woun’t have in the future). And it’s community is strong and solve much of the problems the program has.
4-Some people will change and some other will not, it’s gonna be a hell of a fight.
I think that Zbrush should have better integration (automatic and loosless) with other packages, and that perhaps could be a key issue to survive.
Tell me what you think that will happen.