Yes it is around the corner. Around six months from what I hear.
The link you posted just backs up a few of my points. Unless I'm missing something, Firestream requires the Stream Computing Software Stack (which in term depends on Catalyst drivers which require an AMD GPU, correct me if I'm wrong).
So just re-read my last post, replace "CUDA" with "software stack" and "Nvidia" with "AMD" and it should all make equally much sense. Also note my comments about using these in farms ...
Last time I worked in VFX (roughly two weeks ago), 99% of the big places had Linux render farms. The Stream Computing SDK from AMD is Windows XP only (and, like CUDA, closed source).
Might proove a little road block even if anyone was crazy enough to want to give this a try implementing support in their renderer as soon as Firesttreams can be purchased (not before September).
They would face the issue that anyone interested in then using it (probably around the time Nehalem becomes available anyway) would need to switch their farm to Windows XP. I think most places would rather eat their shorts. 
Going back to CPUs --, AMD, too, will likely have a CPU with specs similar to Intel's Nehalem.
And this generation of CPUs will be out much sooner than any vendor could add production-ready support for GPU stuff to their renderer and much much sooner than any sane decision making person at a big place will smoke a pot big enough to hallucinate about putting blades of any sort into their farms' blades. ;)
As such it is nothing but contraindicated to spend time on adding GPU support to one's renderer at this time. Even more so with the rapid developments on the hardware side of things.
From your comments in other threads and the love you regularly express for mental ray I would guess that you are probably one of these people who render single frame architectural stuff on a single or several desktops. And that mental ray is probably the only renderer whose use (or quirks) you more or less understand, thoroughly.
If that was the case, consider that almost everything you believe to know about "rendering" does not apply in the world of VFX or full CG features and I don't mean that in any way pejorative. Consider then that all my comments apply solely to the application of rendering in these two use cases.
You are mistaken in assuming that my regularly expressed amusement about people's affection with mental ray stemmed from a lack of knowledge about this renderer.
I worked in commercials many years before switching to VFX and in the former field many places still haven't seen the light and put their artists through the daily pain that comes with using mental ray for most kinds of animation work.
Working freelance I thus inevitably ended up at a place, sooner or later, where I had to cope with it. My opinion on mental ray is solely based on these "experiences" (and there were enough for two lives).
Lets just say, I’d have gladly missed any of them. 
.mm
