In the first few days of the ASIC being out they can be quite profitable, but the difficulty will quickly increase to diminish the profits.
In a way, that's a shame. It seems that these new ASIC machines will quickly make it nearly impossible for the little guy to mine enough BTC to make it worth the effort. Something like this could turn BitCoin into something that benefits those who already have the
BTCBTCBTC or $$$, and the little guy gets the tiniest, tiniest scraps that are leftover... and that sounds too much like a monetary system we are already too familiar with.
Anyway, hopefully I can build a small Jalapeno army rather quickly within a few months, and then start buying the $1299 ones that do 40 Gh/s... and slowly work my way up to the 1000 Gh/s monster.
One good thing, though... I doubt many people will invest in the more expensive ASICs right away... They'll likely want to see the results (and consistency) delivered by the Jalapeno before plunking down a huge investment for the (supposedly) more powerful units.