For me there is no doubt both networks will be complementary. Ripple is obviously influenced by the fact that most of the team members come from a Bitcoin background. Bitcoin-related use cases are very much a priority. That's all I wanna say lest I get in trouble.

What I can tell you is that this project is the most fun I've had at any startup. The team is absolutely amazing and working on something like this and getting paid for it is a dream come true.

(Speaking of which - if you've got the skills, we're hiring.)

As far as the client is concerned, it's already open-sourced, so if you're bored waiting for more details to come out, feel free to check in on our progress: https://github.com/rippleFoundation/ripple-client/commits/master