I wonder if Boeing will invest in making the 747 Advanced a FBW aircraft, or will they keep commonality with -400? If the seat-mile costs can be brought in line with the A380's, then the aircraft could have a real future. A 5-meter stretch would also be a nice addition of cargo space as well. The aircraft would certainly be in a market niche all by itself at 450 seats.
I'd also be curious to see numbers on the payload and range of the proposed freighter. The new 777-200LR freighter comes close to the payload of the existing -400 (at least in weight), and offers excellent range at reduced costs. A 747 Advanced freighter could occupy a completely different niche, again all by itself.
It will be interesting to watch the progress of this particular 747 development.
To ElectroVlasic, the A380 works as a package freighter (UPS, FedEx, etc), but Sutter is right, the A380 simply will not have the 747's large-long item freight flexibility. Due to its basic configuration, the 747 will always win on freight flexibility compared to the A380.