I just received an e-mail from DxO announcing a new version of its image correction software that works with raw files See
http://www.dxo.com/en/photo/home/default.php .
They have done this by adding raw conversion capacity to their software, the current version of which only works with directly captured jpegs. This makes them a competitor of C1 and ARC. We'll see how well it works once trial versions become available.
It would be great if C1 could add image correction features (corrections for barrel, pincushon, CA and vignetting) in their next version.