First the release of Daz Studio Beta now the announcement from Eovia they plan of releasing a plug-in for Carrara. I think that they are all reacting to the latest buy out of Curious Labs and fear has set in with the follow announcement:

"Curious Labs and e frontier together plan to develop integration between Shade 7 and the future releases of Poser. This, as well as many of the plug-in projects in development will increase the power and functionality of Poser for the 3D artist."