Louis J. Petralli, Jr. owns approximately 80 percent of Met One. The Relevant Product Market 10. There are no reasonably interchangeable substitutes for drinking water particle counters to which enough municipalities and water companies would switch in response to a small but significant, nontransitory increase in price imposed by drinking water particle counter manufacturers that would make such a price increase unprofitable. Each firm sells its drinking water particle counters through its own sales force, as well as through third party sales representatives. Each firm has entered agreements with third parties to manufacture drinking water particle counters to be sold under a third party's label.
Municipalities generally purchase drinking water particle counters through formal bid procedures.
Although price is an important factor, municipalities also consider quality, reliability, service, and the reputation of the qualifying firms. Municipalities routinely request as part of a firm's bid package a list of references from past successful bids from each firm. Municipalities also routinely invite drinking water particle counter competitors to demonstrate the capabilities of their respective devices prior to the municipality's determination of the bid winner. In addition to drinking water particle counters, municipal water treatment facilities may use devices known as turbiditymeters, which are not part of the relevant market. Turbidity is an optical measurement of solid contamination suspended as particles in a fluid.