I am sure other platforms will spring up. JPMorgan just filed a patent for some sort of payment system last week, for example. I looked over their patent, but it would take me to long time to come around the lexical learning curve to understand exactly what it says.
I would guess any other competing platform will be run buy a corporate entity....and that entitiy will likely be forced to apply significantly higher fees (than Ripple) because they will have to pay for their overhead.
The trading and converting interface of Ripple is as streamlined as anyone could ever hope. The only way I would improve the user experience is to bury the 'trust lines' into an Advanced features tab.....because it was (at least for me) a very puzzling concept at first. Only having it auto spring up when you deposit at a Gateway would be best.
In terms of their timeline, I also wish that Ripple would push in on the gas a bit....use their connections with Google for promotion, use their connections with Coinbase to provide another gateway, etc. I'm relatively impatient, I guess.
And I really hope their business plan entails untethering the value of XRP from Bitcoin and that they base it on a basket of currencies.
I've not encountered anything specific about their business plan or timeline. Have you?