What is the purpose of these? Is it a promotional aid? e.g. they expected to sell at $50, so they price to $75, then give away effectively enough "coupons", such that their sale price is $50? Or, are they really giving something back to the early orders - is it possible to get a Cash Alternative? Or, say use 3 coupons, such to get a free chip?
[speculation]
They gotta get rid of legal liability from non-delivery.
They also got to lower the bar in delivering thousands of 60Gh/s miners. Delivery of all those 60gh/s miners implies a huge cost at half the price. (1300USD vs 2500USD) It'll cost them a good chunk of change after all the screw up and extra bills they have incurred from redesign to redesign. Sending people 4 $ chips instead of their fully completed order saves them a ton of money.
They will turn a massive growing loss into a profit or at the very least a break even.
Parts and materials cost alot of money. They have the obligation to deliver these units at cost or above their cost.
So some scheming guy at BFL probably came up with the plan to simply lower the bar and cost of legal delivery of those units by asking customers if they want them converted to ASIC chips only. It is just chips! How cost effective is that?
Now short sighted dummies are trading in completed miners for a 'bag o' chips'.
Thereby taking the obligation of BFL to deliver 60gh/s miners to simply sending them an incomplete unit with promises that someone else will do it.
LMAO. BFL, you have an awesome way of doing things.
