I think it's worth noting that Bitcoin is not proprietary technology so notions of competition may not fully apply. Its stakeholders are all the people who are interested in a free currency - so if someone comes up with a significantly better solution, we should have no problem shifting to that.

If Bitcoin develops in such a way that it retains its decentralized nature and its technical integrity, I'm not sure I see the advantage in having a diverse set of crypto-currencies - but I'm happy to be proven wrong.