Will Habari Be The Next WordPress?
readwriteweb.com
readwriteweb.com
Habari doesn't seem to be significantly different from WordPress as far as end-users can tell or care. It doeesn't have anything equivalent to Wordpress.com. It isn't clear why a hosting provider recommend and preinstall Habari instead of WordPress for its customers.
I think something could come along and dethrone WordPress-- just as WordPress dethroned Moveable Type--but I don't think Habari's approach of marketing itself as technically superior is going to do much to pursuade the majority of WordPress users. The video on the Habari website shows how easy it os to configure Habari after you have downloaded and (halfway) installed it. However, it is still much, much harder to install Habari than it is to sign up for WordPress.com or use hosting providers' one-click WordPress installs. Askimet, Gravatar, and Intense Debate are (or will) be seemlessly integrated into WordPress, whereas every other blogging system will require extra steps to get those popular (almost essential) features working.
Wordpress might have a nice admin UI and a large community, but the code and even they way you interact with the code is ugly and in large part PHP3-style... (at least it was when I was looking at it extending it sometime after v2 came out...)