Presumably, they started development on this 6 months ago.
Why would you presume that? BFL has no internal ASIC or FPGA design experience. Everything is outsourced.
This is the resume for their "CTO/CEO" who supposedly resides in France. Note the total lack of relevant experience.
This will be the 2nd round of asics being produced. They have to be getting better at this game by now with more industry contacts and suppliers.
Actually, it will probably be the five-hundredth round for the design house that BFL outsources their chip design to. That didn't help them the first time, it probably won't help them this time either.
Now they have 1 product line instead of 4 greatly simplifying the production.
Yes.
They are going after the higher end guys who are willing to make a business out of this.
Actually, PCI goes after the lower end market. You want blades with a simple rackmountable backplane that can handle 10 or so blades. Not something designed to sit in $500 of 4U overhead with tons of wasted space inside and a shitty cooling profile.
Its got to be annoying to sit and listen to some guy who ordered a 5gh miner for $300 bitching about when his shit is going to be there screaming SCAMMERS all day.
They could ship product instead of sitting around reading the forums. Solves 2 problems at once!
I'll admit this came sooner then what I would have expected.
You now have 3 choices. 1) Double Down 2) Go long, 3) Cry Moar. 90% of the people in the forum have chosen option 3.
Anyone who is serious will choose option 1. I doubt many will choose option 2.
Serious brain damage perhaps.