While Maya is widely used at present, in my opinion it is in serious trouble in the near future from competition with Houdini.
SideFX keep up an amazing pace of development, and Autodesk don't even seem to be trying to compete at that level.
That said, it doesn't reduce the relevance of python for vfx at all - it's definitely the main language for getting vfx stuff done.
Most definitely, SideFX and Blender are eating away at the mind share for Maya. I don't see SideFX replacing Maya anytime soon for animation or organic modeling (and therefore rigging) work, but definitely is taking over everything else. Blender is gaining a lot of traction in those areas though, so I know quite a few studios investigating Blender+Houdini productions now. Though many are still just early testing.
I think a serious effort on animation is absolutely underway in Houdini (the new 'KineFX' released in 18.5 the other day is a foundational element of this, as I understand it.)
Haven't heard anything other than vague hints but they may also be working on something that could start to eat part of the sculpting/painting pie (zBrush/mudBox/etc).
Modelling wise SideFX are going great guns (they hired some of the awesome Softimage devs when Autodesk shut that down). Houdini's modelling toolset now at least rivals if not surpasses what is available in Maya out of the box, however there is a massive amount of inertia in this department. Modellers seem to get a bit stuck on specific tools, so things don't tend to change until new modellers start coming in, bringing the new tools with them.
