Just running some numbers here..
 
Avalon batch 1:  20 Thash
Avalon batch 2:  40 Thash
Avalon tradins:   20 Thash (trade ins are not part of batch 2.)
 
Total Avalon by May:  80 Thash
 
BFL --  with the pictures that were recently posted of the BFL (non-asic-populated) boards, I'm now in the camp that I believe BFL will be shipping a product that at least comes close to their stated goals of 7.5 Ghash per chip.  Having said that, I've seen batch numbers ranging from 15K chips to 100K chips..  At this point the most plausible I've seen are an initial batch of 15K, followed closely by another 15K followed by a 35K batch...  Going with a gut feeling partially based on all the BFL adds I'm seeing, and how active their forums are, I'm thinking they have all 3 batches sold.  So, allowing for some defects, and rounding I'm guessing:
 
BFL batch 1:  100 Thash
BFL batch 2:  100 Thash
BFL batch 3:  220 Thash
 
Total BFL by may:  420 Thash
 
Soo..  the way I see it, there is already 500 Thash of existing paid for pre-orders.   Factoring in existing FPGA's, free electric GPU's, Goliath, other ASICs, aliens from Omnicron, and what-not, it looks to me like if you were to order an ASIC right now, the difficulty would be at least 75MM by the time you got it.  
 
Using the profitability calculator over at bitcoinx.. and figuring another 4x rise in difficulty over the following year, I get a ROI of 250 days..  and a net profit over 2 years of around $500.  
 
Figuring only a doubling in difficulty for each subsequent year gives a 190 day ROI and a 2 year profit of $1750.  
 
Now, the question is:  After the pre-orders are all filled, will the ASIC vendors reign in production (only 2x)? or will they keep pumping out units (4x plus)?    I'm leaning towards thinking they'll keep pumping them out, even if that means they have to lower the prices to do it....
 
Going with that 250 day ROI.. In just about every other business in existence, a 250 day ROI would be absolutely orgasmic...  Whats different about this?  Well, one must keep in mind that mining returns are not linear (unlike most other businesses).. The vast majority of your returns will be front loaded.  If you assume that the ASIC companies will do what it takes (lower prices) to keep selling units, your residual income after you hit ROI is going to be minimal.
 
Conclusion:  I haven't already ordered an ASIC, I'd be better off just buying bitcoins instead.  
 
Note:  I purposefully did not factor in the possibility of BTC gaining in value vs. $$.  I figure that any such gain (or loss) would be offset 1:1 when comparing mining BTC vs. outright buying BTC.

Now, what am I missing?
 
Sigg

Now, if Coinlab could just find some clients wanting heavy integer work instead of floating point, we'd be in rockin.  I'm sure ebay is gonna be flooded here shortly with cheap 58xx series cards.

Hey.. I can dream.. right?

Sigg

Bummer..  with the advent of Avalon ASICs in the wild, we are quickly aproaching the end of GPU mined bitcoins.  This is doubly painfull for those of us who didn't find out about coinlab till the protected pool was already winding down   

Pretty soon here I'm going to have to decide to either sell the GPU farm, or hold on in hopes of a HPC client.

Sigg

Unfortunately, the above is so true at the moment.   Rest assured, however, that someone will eventually come out with a competing product.  And, that someone will have decent customer service to boot.  When that happens, Avalon's "care less" attitude is going to come back to bite them... hard.

Apparently, this is how business is done in China..  News flash: the ASIC customer base is global..  Western expectations of customer service DO apply here.

Sigg

+1

Tried, failed..  trying to decide if I'm disapointed..  Do I really want to do business with a company that soooo drops the ball on communication? 

Silence is NOT golden in this case.

Sigg

OK.. I'm officially giving up.. I cannot get their site to allow me to even add a unit to the shopping cart..

Avalon:  I tried to give you my money.  hopefully you read this thread and will contact us users having issues by PM to work out an order.

Sigg

what order...I'm trying both IE and crome and can't even get a unit added to the cart !!

+1

same here.. using crome.. just getting "updating" nonstop

 

I'm stuck at "updating" after I added to wallet


grrrrrrr

ya know... you don't need to keep refreshing the avalon page... just keep refreshing this thread.. as soon as you see no new posts for 30 seconds, you'll know the order window is open

somewhere there is a hosting company with an alarm going off for potential DDOS attack due to lots of sudden refresh requests

F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 

And that would be relevant to the discussion if Avalon was selling "chips" .. they are not. They are selling a turn-key unit.  They have always marketed this as a stand alone "unit".  As such, any sane person would expect them to give power consumption for the unit.  Stating 450 watts power consuption when it is in fact 620 is simply misleading, boardering on outright falsehood.

Now, having said that.. AVALON.. WHAT THE HELL  at 620 watts you still have a KICK ASS product !!! Why are you cheapening your brand by pulling a stupid stunt like this?  You are doing much more damage to yourself by playing the "well, technically bla bla bla" bullshit than just coming out and saying "dang, our estimates were off.. its really 620 watts.  Its for stuff like this we wanted 3rd party reviews."

Have you ever wondered why everyone hates lawyers?  Its cuz of the sterio type they have of pulling "technically accurate" but still bullshit parsings of words just like you are doing here.

Sigg

This is one thing that concerns me.. what about units that are DOA or have obvious manufacturing defects?

Does Avalon do burn ins on the units before they are sent out?

Sigg

I'm curious:  will batch #2 base units be a larger form factor? or will the Batch #2 modules have a smaller form factor to be able to fit 6 modules in the same space as 4 batch #1's ??  (( Possibly as thinner, but more efficient heat sink? ))

Also, are there enough power connectors avaliable that we could add 2 additional fans to increase airflow?

Sigg

For the love of Satoshi, PLEASE let this be the HPC client...

Sigg

I think we are in complete agreement.. you just stated my thoughts better than I did.

Hence, my suggestion that they initially limit it to one unit per customer, so that ( in the decentralized spirit of bitcion ) .. as many miners as possible have at least one godlike hashing unit...  if they don't come up with 500(600?) unique customers, by all means, then open it up to multiple units per customer.. but please at least give everyone a chance so that one (or a few) customers can't buy up the entire batch, simply cuz they refreshed the buy page 2 seconds quicker than everone else...

thanks,
Sigg

No children, but same here on the "got to work tomorrow" ... I managed to arange to work from home today, won't be able to do that again on short notice..    Hoping the new date is on the weekend, or that we get at least 48 hours notice so we can make arangements...

also, how long will we have to pay after we submit the order?

Regards,
Sigg

Didn't Avalon also state that Batch #2 was going to be 500 units?  I took "build to order" to mean they will not order the parts till they have been paid..not to mean that they will build as many as everyone wants.  

Avalon, could you please clarify?

Thanks,
Sigg