Meade and Celestron, the world's two largest manufacturers of amateur telescopes, are locked in a legal and market battle, perhaps to the death. If one of them goes under, it will be a sad day for stargazers--in recent years, the competition has resulted in tremendous advances in affordable capability.

Hopefully, Celestron is not going to be forced out. But, the worst case scenario would only have a significant impact on the Schmidt-Cassegrain design of telescopes, where both are big players. Other designs such as Newtonians and Refractors have more "players" in the market.