ProTools  & Cubase because of it's time on the market and ubiquitous nature.
Logic & Sonar as their by their defiance in not being cross-platform and some depend on that purist ideal.
Reaper, because of it's cult like following that will probably never let it die. (And this is the one to keep an eye on for that very reason).
 
And I think Notion is still a viable notation software as much as the other three too.
Especially considering you can crossgrade from it to Finale and save money by going that route.
 
Add/edit: And PPG too, specifically for being the entry level DAW for people that don't want to get overly invloved but still need quick and effective results.

I will give this thread the benefit of the doubt that it has good intentions.  However, most of what is being expressed is based on slippery slope reasoning and there are contradictions galore in some of the conclusions.  The biggest flaw in any of the conclusions is nobody  seems to have any reference as to what the sales numbers are for any of the products mentioned. We have no idea what profit margins are.  The fact that Reaper can be fully used for free indefinitely probably insures it will stick around, but who knows if they are making a cent in profit. "Survival" and running a thriving business are two different things.
 
How Logic is barely mentions is astounding.  FL studio is also a glaring omission as well.  As long as platinum selling hip-hop artists and producers (Lex Luger) and dance music stars(DeadMau5) at the top of their respective food chains keep using FL Studio, it's not going anywhere.  I'm all for speculation, but random shots in the dark without having any idea how any of these companies are actually doing financially tells us nothing..   

Flashback to 2005:
 
Gigastudio is by far the best sampler. It's hard to see how it won't remain so for a loooong time.... 

Good reminder.  The software market is so volatile that major changes can happen in a heartbeat.  If it was so easy to speculate with any certainty as to what companies will fail and thrive, the ratio of winners to loser in the stock market would shift dramatically.  If stock brokers with tons of detailed research cannot predict what will happen woth any degree of certainty, predicting which companies will survive is laughable.  We live in a word where one game changing feature or one huge misstep can change fortunes over night. 

Off the top of my head I will say Pro Tools, Cubase, Sonar and FL.
 
But let me think about it and I will get back to you in about 7 years 
 

dubdisciple
Good reminder.  The software market is so volatile that major changes can happen in a heartbeat.  If it was so easy to speculate with any certainty as to what companies will fail and thrive, the ratio of winners to loser in the stock market would shift dramatically.  If stock brokers with tons of detailed research cannot predict what will happen woth any degree of certainty, predicting which companies will survive is laughable.  We live in a word where one game changing feature or one huge misstep can change fortunes over night. 

I think this is a great reply.  For purely personal reasons I hope Sonar and Logic survive.  However, imagine if Native Instruments came out with a quality, fully fledged DAW and packaged it with Komplete - that could be a game changer!

Stipulation: I don't know much about other DAWs.
 
I think Cakewalk will survive and be around in 7 years because they try to stay on the wave and ahead of the curve (plus they have a lot of users who will be willing to weather the storm, as it were). I think X3 or X2b will be received well by most, some will find a problem with whatever they release, others will be happy. Like it or not, a lot of the marker is moving toward touch and i-crap because  that is where the mass market lives. I don't think that Cake will forget the small studio people.
I think Reaper will be around because of their user base and their business model.
Cubase and Logic will probably be around.
Pro Tools will be around because people are really slow to change even when they are not happy and PT is in a ot of pro studios.
I also think Harrison Mixbus will likely move up in the market... it will either bust of blast off. I think Harrison has the resources to make it work. It (along with Reaper) may well bring about the demise of some of the established DAWS.
Studio One... I don't know. I know people who swear it is the best thing since sliced salami and others who would like to be rid of it. I think a lot of it depends on what you do with a DAW. If you are mostly MIDI you will hate one and love another... if you are mostly audio you probably have an opposite opinion of the same DAWs.
 
Of course this is all completely subjective opinion on my part.
 
We could ask Bubba, he has probably been there already (7 years from now)... but he is probably sworn to secrecy.
 
J

Didn't one of the more revered members of this board recently state that mixcraft was the be all end all of DAW's and all others suck in comparison?
 
 
No offense to mixcraft users. It may be a perfectly fine DAW. It's just the string of posts that hit this forum by an unnamed member were way over the top.

You cannot project the longevity of any software based on current popularity, nor on which huge multinational company's wing it lives under.
 
Remember OS/2? I didn't think so. Backed by IBM and Microsoft and heavily marketed. Anybody else ever use Xenix? That was going to be Microsoft's independent UNIX. It died, while another independent version, initially developed by one guy and advertised solely by word-of-mouth, became very successful. Remember when Microsoft got sued for imitating market-leader Lotus 123's keyboard shortcuts? Nobody cares about that now. Remember when CP/M was going to rule the emerging personal computer market? How about WordPerfect, which once had a 90% market share. How many of you are running a Netware network? Or playing games from once high-flying ID Software? Writing software in LISP, Cobol or FORTRAN? On a NeXT machine?
 
These aren't obscure also-rans. They are examples of software products that once graced the cover of Time Magazine, had nothing but positive buzz and ruled their market segments.
 
It would not be historically inconsistent for Pro Tools to be gone and forgotten in 20 years. Logic could disappear even sooner; all it would take is one meeting in an Apple boardroom. Steinberg may be a big fish in our world, but once they became part of Yamaha they became a footnote in the company annual report - and could be abandoned with the same ease as dropping a motorcycle model. Same for Cakewalk: last time I read a Roland annual report CW didn't even warrant a separate line item.
 
If I was going to place a bet, it would be on Garage Band.

Ouch!! yea.. as much as I hate to admit it...Garage Band +1