If anyone is wondering why this is happening, its because for the longest time RenderMan was Top Dog. This was the case so long that they didn't innovate enough and got usurped by a Render engine called Arnold, which has a much easier workflow then the very technical Renderman.

How bad?

ILM - which was THE place to use Renderman (and if you know anything about Pixar you know why), uses Arnold now.

So now they are running scared - sucks for them, but good for those of you who want to make awesome renders.