Jira's core positioning is huge companies with complex organizations that will be willing to adjust tooling to their needs. Sure small and middle size companies

Jira's core positioning is huge companies with complex organizations that will be willing to adjust tooling to their needs. Sure small and middle size companies can be happy with it too, but they're far from being the main profit center. At that level, there isn't much competition. It costs a lot to develop a product that does everything and throws in the kitchen sink. It doesn't make sense for a startup, Open Source project could fit the bill (bugzilla ?) but they'd still need a service providing company, probably some corporate backing for the contracts etc. Basically, JIRA is the Microsoft (or Oracle?) of the field, and any other company wanting to fight that turf would need incredibly deep pockets with an upfront investment that would only be recouped way way down the line, if they ever make it that far, and fighting JIRA would mean lower margins than if they dominated the market alone. Overall that doesn't look like a sane bet in any shape or form.