Julia is one of those products that is not only 10x better in one dimension, but is also at least marginally better in most other dimensions compared to Matlab. I think they have a bright future.

Julia is lucky because they are targeting not just a niche but a userbase that has been amassed already. Really what they're doing is directly taking on Matlab it seems, where Matlab users have gotten frustrated with how stale and expensive the language is. Julia has the fortunate task of convincing unsatisfied people who are paying a shit ton of money for an inferior product to try a superior product for free.