Current state of direct RNA sequencing
Helicos stopped shipping reagents around 2010-2011, as they couldn't compete with Illumina. For now it seems that reverse transcription -> Illumina-sequenced cDNA is so much cheaper than any other option, that's the method that is dominant.

Oxford Nanopore has discussed direct RNA profiling, but unfortunately their first product still hasn't shipped (for DNA or otherwise), and they haven't even released data, it may be a little while longer.