I want to start from today's news, new SDK released (there are 10+ now)
https://blog.ark.io/ark-kotlin-making-android-apps-for-ark-becomes-a-breeze-with-kotlin-aee05cfb86cf and ACES update (btc/ark service, new website and more)
https://medium.com/@arkaces/aces-completes-bitcoin-ark-service-updated-website-and-releases-marketplace-api-documentation-95e26be49e11.
ArkVM is at 70% completion, CoreV2 at 56% and Push Button Deployable Blockchains at 61% you can see it buy looking at the roadmap
https://ark.io/roadmap.
In a couple of months all three will be at 100% and things will get interesting (and as far as I know they'll start marketing it).
So what's gonna happen? Let's say you have a company and you want to "blockchain it", you can choose between many platforms,the way to go right now is to create an erc20 token running on ethereum blockchain.
With ARK, instead of creating smart contracts running on the main chain, you can easy fork it (thanks to PBDB), you can add ArkVM on your chain for smart contracts and your new chain will be smartbridged (connected/linked) to ARK's main chain and other forked chains creating an interoperable ecosystem.
On top of that your new chain will benefit from ACES, which right now has finished encoded listeners for ARK, BTC, LTC and ETH. ACES services are more then simple atomic swaps, for example with ETH service you can deploy smart contracts by using ARK on the Ethreum chain (the current service on the ACES website is running on Ropsten testnet).
A practical example, imagine cryptokitties on its own chain, without clogging the main chain but you'll able to buy your kitties with any coin of the ARK ecosystem plus coins/tokens provided by ACES services.
Plus I have to mention that ARK is a business entity in France, last week on France24 they even call it "le bitcoin de france" (sorry I'm not french maybe I didn't write it right
)
*Edit! ARK it's also a DPOS coin which means that you'll get a 10% interest per year on your coins by voting one of the 51 delegates!