Polemaster/Mount Vendor Collaboration - Food for Thought

[DeepSkyMan]

I was discussing with a fellow stargazer, during a cloud induced intermission over a few drams the other evening, the merits of the QHY Polemaster and an interesting question popped up.  Would it be in QHY's interest to collaborate with a mount vendor and package their Polemaster product with that vendor's mounts?  Their is a key argument against such a move that being that QHY could probably make more selling individual units to the market than via such a collaborative effort.   Would be interested to hear fellow forum members views on this topic.

 

Kind Regards

Paul.

[carastro]

If it's not sold separately then there is no opportunity for those already owning mounts to add Polemaster to their kit.  

Carole 

[DeepSkyMan]

I would not imagine that QHY would stop selling the kit separately, rather the mount vendor would look upon such a collaboration as a marketing advantage over their competition.  I think that QHY would have the cudos of having their product associated with the mount vendor.  Of course the mount vendor would have to have the market appeal in order to make such a venture worthwhile.

On the other hand you can always argue that QHY have sufficient market traction through their existing range of products and the Polemaster itself that they don’t need any sort of collaboration to drive the product forward.  It’s not as if they’re a start-up with a revolutionary product attempting to break into the astronomy market.  

However let’s say hypothetically that QHY decide that polar alignment products like   Polemaster are going to make traditional mechanisms such as the obiquitous polar scope completely redundant.  They decide that it’s only a matter of time before another astro house brings out a similar product and they want to take a market monopoly approach.  It’s conceivable that such a collaboration might happen.  Or is it?

[StuartJPP]

iOptron already have a branded PoleMaster and have done for a long time, QHYCCD would be mad to give iOptron exclusivity on the PoleMaster.

https://www.ioptron.com/product-p/3338.htm

 

[DeepSkyMan]

14 minutes ago, StuartJPP said:

iOptron already have a branded PoleMaster and have done for a long time, QHYCCD would be mad to give iOptron exclusivity on the PoleMaster.

https://www.ioptron.com/product-p/3338.htm

 

Stuart

I wasn’t aware that QHY had such a branding relationship already with a vendor, I was only aware of the range of adaptors for the various mounts.   It’s interesting though that they have already made a step in this direction.  I agree though that exclusivity definitely would not be in QHY’s plans.