In North America, Park reigns supreme. But VAR is still a significant bicycle tool source elsewhere. Unior, Cyclus, Eldi, and others also offer specialty tools for the bicycle industry. In my first bike shop job (late 70s), our bicycle-specific tools were mostly Park and VAR, with a smattering of others (Eldi, Campagnolo, Artisan Tool & Die, etc.). Park and VAR had a cross-licensing/distribution agreement going back at least into the 1980s.
JohnDThompson,
Similar experience for me as well except I worked in shops from high school (1973) to college (1980-ish), after that I worked construction (carpenter) for summer jobs.
As I recall, the first Park tool we got was a brake "Third Hand". It was a game changer. The old VAR we had was a pain to use. I agree that Park has the American market pretty much locked up but VAR and the others mentioned make very good tools also. Hozan is another company that makes great tools, and in many cases, better than anyone else in my opinion. Their chain tool is an especially coveted tool of mine.
I own a lot of Park tools, for a home mechanic, as well as an array Snap On (which I use to work on my cars), Hozan, VAR, Unior, etc. Many are left over from my days working in bike shops, where many of us had to buy our own tools at the time.
For what you get though, over-all, Park is hard to beat in most bike tool-specific categories.