In a competitive market, the main player just by the nature of market share alone gains several advantages... bad or good, fact of business in any venue.
In the Consumer and Prosumer market that is DJI, in Enterprise market DJI was a minimal player and now a weak middle player seeking stronger share. Like them or not, business wise they do a great job climbing and acquiring businesses to improve their position... adding a few shipping lines, FLIR, Hasselblad, 2 Chiness IC chip manufactures (that Autel and others depend on), etc. into their Entity is business wise & strength.
Regarding software or accessory companies; When a development shop such as DroneDeploy or any of the multiple others: UgCS, AutoPilot, Map Pilot, DroneHarmony, etc. consider a new avenue with limited funds in budgets they want maximum ROI.
They look at market share of sUAV and weather gaining or loosing market share... particularly if they design unique app for platform similar to DJI apps.
Although DJI does have market authority, I think the inclusion or development for Autel products is more currently market share based and the development resources they want to place on platform. They're in it for success & profit, if they determined a profit is obtainable they'd provide a solution to include the platform regardless of their strong support for DJI.
Actually, DJI doesn't kill several competitors... they do some and like Autel, severely slowed the EVO release by controlling the IC chips. One that strikes this tactic of not directly attacking is the small Hex platform provided by Yuneec. This is a platform DJI could have easily added to drive Yuneec down. They (DJI) make multiple Hex & Octal large expensive platforms for years. Rumor is they are preparing a small Hex for the near future as Yuneec has gained a little ground with the H520 in Enterprise environment.
If Autel becomes more aggressive and introduces more product or associated products for platforms... increase sales and nibble at market share would have a better chance obtaining 3rd party support.
Makes sense. Again, I don't expect to see much development from third party app providers being inclusive to Autel at the moment. Autel created some flight modes for use, they just need to tweak them so users do not have to rely on Litchi or other third party apps. Anafi has outstanding flight modes. Ala carte is fine if they have value. Not all users facilitate waypoints or orbits etc. If Autel made them, charged $29 for it, and it had waypoints with dynamic path/altitude/camera angles adjustments in flight from point to point, multiple POI, I'd buy it yesterday. They have the flight modes already, they just do not work well enough. Stopping each point for alt adjust, then proceeding might be good for a real time use with a client viewing your screen which I have done, but a more fluid path from point to point, with the camera tilt, smooth adjustment in flight say from alt of 50' to 100' at the next waypoint is crucial for video. Sure, you can modify in post if you want all that extra work. It also eats more battery the way it stops, adjusts alt, hovers, and then proceeds.
To me, Autel is going to have to redesign these flight modes. My guess is they are moving on to the next bird that will have some of those functions, better tracking capability, longer flight time, and a bigger sensor. It was made to compete with MP1 and in that it does an excellent job. Even compares well to the M2P video, but is outmatched for photo options. Still, an Evo FMC is under $1100 or cheaper on sales, and a M2P fmc is $1900.
Autel success is going to come from how well they support the products. So far, not bad, but not the greatest either. The flight mode fixes have been requested for 10 mos or better, especially waypoints. Gimbal tilt is workable, but many still saying it starts up off center, and they have to adjust the tilt every flight. Well, yeah but all of these units have gimbal tilt to a degree, especially in flight. Some settle in and sometimes they don't, especially after a hard turn. Might take a few seconds to level back out. Some expect that to be instantaneous, but to me I get the physical and electronic aspect of that nature.
I guess my point is if Autel can do it better, their rankings in the minds of the drone users will go higher. For now, they have a large hurdle.