CN: Hi William,
thanks much for agreeing to take part in the first manufacturer
interview - we appreciate that you have a very busy schedule, and are
very pleased that you can spare us some time. If you would,
please take a minute and tell us a bit about yourself.
I was born in Taiwan, lived 15years in California where I got USA
citizenship before coming back to my native country to pursue my
interest in astronomy. I live with my family in Taipei, Taiwan, and
take care of William Optics production from here.
CN: How did you
get interested in astronomy?
I was interested in Astronomy since I was about 10 years old. I stole
my grandmother's eyeglasses to build my first telescope. It was not a
fluorite Megrez, but still it kindled my interested in the subject I
must say!
Another interest I had since I was young, leafing through the pages of
Sky & Telescope was astrophotography. Back then, I couldn't
afford a telescope, but I remember telling myself one day I
would take similar pictures!
Later on, I started building my first real refractor, after being
amazed by the star Sirius. I wanted to find out why it was so bright,
but the telescope was not good enough for the task.
My first purchased telescope was in 1986 during high school, to view
the Halley Comet. I spent a whole summer to pay for it, but I spent
many more summers enjoying its views! I then upgraded to an 80mm
refractor with a DP mount, but I couldn't take perfect pictures by
using a single motor: my hand was the other motor! I think this
telescope started my love for small refractors that now I build for
other people. I will never forget the Saturn rings I saw through it.
Many years later, I decided to move up to a bigger 7" doublet APO
refractor. I will not mention the maker, but what I can tell you is
that I was so disappointed with it, such a poor collimation and bad
chromatic aberrations, that I started buying some very expensive brands
one after the other, from 105mm to 180mm APO. I was very pleased with
them, they allowed me to take great pictures, but I reasoned, most
people would not be able to afford them, and I loved them so much that
I decided to make my own stuff with equal quality but more reasonable
prices so that anybody could enjoy my same passions and interests.
ZenithStar 80 - Dedicated Binoscope
Version w/ WO Binoviewer
Yes, as I mentioned before, I am quite interested astrophotography.
I even publishes a short book here in Taiwan about it.
When I was young, my father used to be an avid hunter, in fact he was
in the shotgun Olympic team.. Actually I took shooting up as a
sports too in the USA, and even got a few medals. But I really disliked
my father killing birds, so I asked him to take photos instead, and
later on I helped in using my Megrez with his camera instead of the
shotgun. This way, I got interested in bird watching too, and my wife
too, she is a professional bird watcher. Luckily, Taiwan is an
excellent
place for bird watching. Allow me a parenthesis here: William Optics is
not only about astronomy: we have many optics products that many
bird watchers love, especially here in Taiwan where we have contacts
with all the main clubs and tens of small ones and individual
professional bird watchers.
I have a huge collection of pics, both of astronomy, birding, and
nature... I quite enjoy hiking with my family and taking photos. I have
asked my colleague to add some of my pics to our gallery: at the end of
the day, I am a user like others, and I am not even the best! Some of
the guys out there have taken AMAZING pictures with our telescopes!
Thank you all for sharing those with us.
http://www.william-optics.com/wowebs/gallery.htm
The Redesigned
FLT-110
I began William Optics in 1996 in Taiwan. I began as a retailer and
distributor for American and Japanese famous brands, mainly to generate
cash flow for my own branding plans. In the meanwhile, I learnt a lot
from other companies and developed my own ideas, step by step, building
on what I had learned and through the help and advice of many experts
and friends, such as Tony Hallas. William Optics USA started business
in 2000, to allow us to serve the American market directly and in a
better way. 2005 will be our best year ever, and we hope to do even
better in 2006.
CN: What do you
see as your companies primary mission?
Crafting the world's finest astronomical instruments, for all
and at a reasonable price. We do not want this to be just a
slogan, we believe in this, and many people can testify to our
dedication to this. Every day, we try to push the bar a little higher
in terms of quality, and a bit lower in terms of price, so that anybody
can afford it; just like when I was young, I would like everybody to
have access to good equipment to expand their knowledge of astronomy.
I am not just a businessman, in fact most people who know me would not
define myself as such. I genuinely care about young people and try to
help them as much as I can also through my professional enterprise. On
top of lots of activities in Taiwan and China, two countries where
there is still a lot to be done, for example this year William Optics
has decided to sponsor the International Youth Astronomy Camp (
www.iayc.org) in Europe and we are
looking for further opportunities to help in the USA in the coming
months.
Astronomy is a healthy hobby which entertains the young and the less
young of us: I would not like to see my children playing video games
all
day, that's why I do not get too angry when they break one Megrez or
two! Furthermore, astronomy puts everything in perspective, how
small we are and how much there is out there to learn.
CN: Talking about
the history of a company, I always start wondering about the first
telescopes that they made. How many did you sell? Is it still
offered or when was it discontinued?
The Megrez started in 2000 and we have since sold thousands of them. It
is not available as it was originally, but the new generation the
Megrez II is still well alive and actually improved compared to the
original version. It is still available in many different
configurations, semi-apo, apo and fluorite apo, and soon will come in
bigger sizes too! This small telescope was a real best seller, so well
selling that some famous companies are now trying to clone the first
generation in China I do not know whether to be angry or flattered!
Check out the Chinese Cloudynights called Astrofarm.net, and find
out for yourselves.
CN: With it being
a world market today, one wonders - What portions of the world do you
sell to?
Apart from our WOnline shop, we have almost a hundred points of sales
on 5 continents. The only continent where we are a bit weak right now
is Africa but I am sure Daniel is working on it! Everywhere else, we
have direct dealers in approximately 30 countries all over the world
and they are expanding every month as more and more potential
candidates contact us to market our excellent products to the local
markets. We work hard to bring the products out, but then it's
our local partners, our dealers, who do a lot of work to make people
aware of our products, so my thanks go to all of them, and to people
like you, Tom, who use your personal time to spread the knowledge of
astronomy products better.
7x50 ED Binos - Waterproof / Shockproof
CN: I know that many of our readers would be very interested if you
could take a moment and summarize the steps involved in bringing a new
telescope to market. I take it that it's a long, involved
process?
It is a long process, as long as child birth, if not longer! You first
need to have a design, run different production tests for the optics
(which involve very high expenses, basically for tooling); you then
proceed to find the right tube for the lens; this usually involves a
lot of waiting too, as the CNC process to produce the tube involves
many sub-manufacturers. Once you have a running sample, you still need
to wait before you can run a full production, you need to consult with
dealers, customers, and submanufacturers. There is almost always the
issue of economy of scale, or even the smallest telescope would end up
being to expensive for the final user. Let me give you an example...
The ZS66 Petzval you tested. We designed it in 2004. We run a first
sample production in the 62mm size, and we displayed it in a star party
that summer and people already loved it. Why did you get it only in
Spring 2005? Many things changed, we increased the size, we produced a
better and sharper Petzval lens, we improved the tube shape twice, we
were the first to introduce a complete glossy anodized tube on the
market. Well, you know the rest of the story, and it's not finished
yet! Every new product takes approximately 9 months to be released.
Other companies are much slower than this, we already think we are
among the fastest companies for time-to-market. It takes time and
patience to produce a good product, time to fix it, time to improve it,
time to make it know to the market.
FLT-110
4" Drawtube
CN: Which
other astronomy company
do you admire and why?
I do not want to single out one company.
I admire many: I admire AP for its product
quality, TV for its great marketing, Tak for its creativity,
and from my childhood memory, I
remember
Celestron with fondness.
But above all I believe in my own company,
which I hope can
learn and take a place among those!
CN: What do
you see that differentiates your company from the other companies on
the market?
We see many differences with many companies, and similarities with
others. We are in this business to remain, first of all.
As much as we are a small company grown out of sheer and genuine
passion for astronomy, we are a professional enterprise and we want to
improve our market position based on our strength points. Our
advantage is that we design, not simply buy a ready made product
produced by a company with little knowledge of the end market. We
dictate what we want, and we build it for you. As you know, 80%
USA-based companies have some sourcing from Taiwan already. We are in
Taiwan, and we are basically the only American-Taiwanese company with a
strong brand right now. We can take advantage of this favorable
environment and market positioning for the end customer who chooses WO.
Let me add one thing. It's very very easy to get the Chinese
fever nowadays, but if you do not know the culture, the people and how
to do business in the country, it's easy for the fever to turn into a
fatal pneumonia. I see many companies falling victim to this trend.
This creates I.P. problems for companies like us, and push us to
invest more in innovation and protection of our products. But the best
companies will emerge in the end, I am convinced of this, so I am not
much worried. When a company starts being copied, that's the sign that
it's succeeding, isn't?
CN: I'd have to
agree with that. You're
certainly one of the innovators on the market today, with a very varied
product line. I know from some of our previous conversations that
you've got some big plans. I think our readers would like to know
- What do you see your line up being in a year?
One year from now, I see bigger and cheaper... Don't make me talk more,
please!
CN: Is there
anything that's not currently on the market that you would like to see
brought to the market?
A good mount like our GT-1 and some good large-field eyepiece. We are
working on the eyepiece, and we are planning about the mount! For the
eyepiece, Tom, you will be the first one to review!
UWAN Wide Angle Eyepieces
If you
allow me a final parentheses, I would like to borrow your time to
publicize a little prize contest our marketing dept. has thought of:
We noticed that there are more people who own our telescopes that we
knew, and many more who take pictures with them that we thought, based
on this, we had an idea. To thank them for choosing WO and for their
efforts, we would like to launch a photo prize contest.
Every two months, for six months from the launch of our new FLT110, I
will choose two pictures between all we receive and that we have
received so far, and award a small prize chosen from our products, such
as a WO Barlow, eyepieces, filter's Now, I do not want that only the
most professional users to win, so I will personally choose the winning
pics based on many different parameters. We will give more
details on this in our next website update, so keep checking
www.william-optics.com for
details!
Once more, thank you for your efforts, and thanks to all friends on
Cloudynights! See you all again next year in the USA at the next venue.
CN: Thanks very
much for your time William!
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