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You can define yourself and, through the remaining empty space, end up defining them. If you define yourself as "The simple, no-frills, easy way to Foo," for example, then you're defining your opponents as one or more of: complex, extra frilly, less easy.

Publicly slagging off competitors by name seems to backfire more often than not, unless you're Steve Jobs.

However you can talk about all the ways that X is done wrong without actually mentioning by name the competitors who are doing X wrong. Clearly explain the problems you see in 'the industry' and your solutions to them, but not the other people/companies involved.

Thanks for the advice - it's pretty much what I ended up doing. Snarky enough to be satisfying, but I buried the diss so it wasn't too blatant. :^)

I wouldn't go TOO crazy badmouthing competitors, as you may end up joining forces later on (through acquisition or partnerships).