key to 51 future is these vendos vision about 51 series MCU
Philips introduces LPC derivatives almost every month, It has been posted that Atmel has introduced some new derivatives. I think that you see two different aproaches from these '51 and ARM vendors. Atmel keep derivating the RD2 to other highly specialized derivatives, Philips concentrate on the small stuff (LPC) where you would never consider an ARM.

ATMEL is one of key players in 51 series market but I fails to understand why they are shifting focus from 51 series to AVR.
that's easy, if you use the AVR you have to buy it from Atmel.

And none of 51 MCU vendors comes out with any significant developement tool support( leave aside low cost or free) when other MCU vendor like PIC, ST , freescale are offering such things.
That is beautiful, chipmaker tools are typically miserable, whereas dedicated software houses produce "usable" software. Just try working with SILabs derivatives where you use the paid for Keil compiler linker and smile, then you use the SILabs free debugger and frown.

Erik