Yes - I know about the company -- I've bought many 2nd hand A2 machines but not directly from them.
Past experience does not guarantee future experience especially in the world of Scrypt miners.
Every Scrypt miner that I have seen as a pre-order (past the A2's) has turned into Vaporware or some crazy fiasco.
In my opinion one would be a big gambler to pre-order such a machine that doesn't exist.
Sounds like a nice exit-strategy to me -- for a known company to advertise a great new Scrypt miner -- a good price -- and then lead people on for months, years, and zip -- they are gone!
Lets face it -- Scrypt mining is on the way out. Slowly, but surely.
LTC was added recently at Antpool... seems that in China, LTC has still got a big following.
I suspect Innosilicon is addressing that market which is a big one esp in China.
That is probably a bad new, because the diff can skyrocked if somewho as Bitmain enter to this market; BTW, could be Bitmain one of the Innosilicon's seek new partners?
If the diff skyrockets and a 250 MB can only generate 1 LTC a week. At $4 a coin you are not going to have a lot of people wanting to invest millions of dollars into setting up a farm. Also if Bitmain was one of their partners, I don't think they would be out trying to get preorder money to build. Another point is that you would think an investment group willing to setup a huge farm in China, would put up the money to do a big first batch build by Innosilicon. Then they can sell miners to individuals after they get the first thousand built. Instead they are trying to get preorder money to start a build. Not a good omen.
Don't disagree with your premise...even with large difficulty jump....but China electric is what 1c 2c kwh or free (for a cut of btc made on the side)...
I now with 1000mh and 14c kwy at 4100 watts and 4.08c LTC am making below
24 hours 10.49414062 LTC 42.82 USD 13.78 USD 29.04 USD
7 days 73.45898438 LTC 299.71 USD 96.43 USD 203.28 USD
30 days 314.82421875 LTC 1284.48 USD 413.28 USD 871.20 USD
IF SAY THE DIFFICULTY FOR LITECOIN DOUBLES well then I would get this
Profitability Analysis
Expected Rewards Costs Net Profit
24 hours 5.24707031 LTC 21.41 USD 13.78 USD 7.63 USD
7 days 36.72949219 LTC 149.86 USD 96.43 USD 53.42 USD
30 days 157.41210938 LTC 642.24 USD 413.28 USD 228.96 USD
big diff 642.24 usd or down 73.7%....but as you can see the above is still profit after electric and I may be screwed at 14c kwh
BUT folk in china with equiv equipment are still killing it ...even if difficulty for LTC doubles
Just saying...how they look at this with their electric costs vs my electric costs is a universe apart don't ya know
anyway my take on it