Reuters: Microsoft says picks prices without worry of competition

“The Microsoft executive who set the price of Windows 98 said in
testimony released at the company’s antitrust trial Thursday that
he picked his price without having to consider the competition. An
antitrust expert said the testimony by senior vice president
Joachim Kempin came close to an admission that Microsoft Corp.
holds monopoly power, a central issue in the case. Perhaps equally
important, District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson questioned Kempin
intensively about sworn statements by a Gateway 2000 Inc. executive
who said that his computer manufacturing firm was threatened by
Microsoft. Together, the two issues are the heart and soul of
allegations by the Justice Department and 19 states that Microsoft
holds monopoly power in the market for the Windows personal
computer operating system and has abused that power in order to
preserve and expand it.”

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