I'm reposting this from the Cloudy Nights Equipment Forum.

Dave Mitsky

From the Orange County Register (registration required):

Meade Instruments assured its 300 manufacturing workers Friday that it would do everything to keep those jobs in Irvine, even as overseas competition in the hobby telescope market intensifies.

"We're committed to innovation and quality, and we believe that it's best done through maintaining our current situation," said Robert Davis, Meade's senior vice president of corporate development.

But the business of making telescopes is changing. Overseas competitors are copying the technology at lower costs and charging lower prices. Meade and its closest U.S. competitor, Celestron, both manufacture telescopes in California. But Celestron hasn't been able to make the business succeed. The Torrance company is near bankruptcy and may be acquired by Taiwan competitor Synta any day now.

Joseph Lupica, Celestron's chief executive, did not return calls Friday.

__________________
Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

That's terrible.

See http://news.tradingcharts.com/futures/4/6/...6/65102364.html for more on the subject.

At one time Celestron attempted to purchase Meade but was prevented by the anti-trust laws. Times and fortunes changed and years later Meade returned the favor. Celestron was eventually purchased by Tasco, which was an import company and never manufactured anything, much like Orion. Tasco went bankrupt and Celestron tried to make it on its own once more. The FTC blocked Meade from buying Tasco and Celestron. After overcoming expensive litigation by Meade over alleged patent infringment it appears that Celestron may soon be on the buying block only this time by the Chinese!

It may well be that Meade will suffer a similar fate due to competition by the Chinese. it won't be too long before a Chinese made SCT is marketed. The next step is the domination of the American apochromat and truss-tube Dob market.

http://www.company7.com/celestron/news/tasco.html

http://www.company7.com/celestron/news/tascocrash.html

http://www.company7.com/celestron/news/ftcpreempt.html

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/si...asp?Symbol=MEAD

Dave Mitsky

__________________
Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

i doubt the truss-tube market interests them. they're already cranking out 8 newts on really nice german equatorials for $200 +/-. makes a dob, well, dumb. they'll target s/cs---but 1st i expect a flood of nice german mount big newts.