If AMD/Intel went in I would like to see for myself their chips capabilities before buying, making the firmware is well within their capabilities but of course would need to see how they run.
That said even if AMD/Intel came in I still think Klondike firmware would hold its own by the time they make that choice unless they adopt it themselves but it would be interesting to see how the market reacts to that type of news.
Asicminer would need to adjust its game
I would like to believe AM has a shot, but we're talking David vs. Goliath. It would take a month for either to catch up to AM, then another month to leapfrog over them via the hordes of PHDs on payroll eager to produce new designs and get them produced right away: the meager advantage AM has over Bitcoin chipmakers/miners currently is irrelevant to the mastodons of the real world. Best case they enter the game very late and by then AM has established itself as a viable company (tour de force already - overtaking legal, scaling, R&D...) able to work the niche and maintain some HW resale that chipmakers don't care for, Divs exist but are very small.
You have a point about the potential risks but the number of bitcoins in circulation shouldn't have any bearing on the potential valuation of a company. The total value of an economy isn't just the money in that economy but all of the goods you can buy or trade with it, including financial instruments such as debt. A higher valuation of ASICMINER adds to the total value of the bitcoin economy.
I'm struggling with the concept - if AM's valuation is disconnected from the currency and it's core functionality is the verification of transactions, then how is it different from the Federal Reserve / Quantitative Easing? That would be artificially devaluating the currency.
I can understand the concept but I struggle to imagine it - in my head we're working a zero-sum world, there cannot be more valuation than the total worth of all the currency available.