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Competition commissioner Mario Monti's presented his findings to representatives from the 15 governments and got backing for a fine that will run into hundreds of millions of dollars. The exact amount will not be revealed until Wednesday.

Nonetheless, it will be a drop in the ocean for Microsoft which has cash reserves in excess of $50bn. The company is expected to appeal.

Although the ruling ostensibly concerns the way Microsoft has tightly integrated support for servers and media playback

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into Windows, thereby excluding rival products from the likes of Sun and Real Networks, the Financial Times reports that the EU is more concerned with the next version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn and expected to appear in 2006.

'People close to the case say the Commission hopes the development of Longhorn will be influenced by its ruling that Microsoft unfairly used its Windows monopoly to displace competitors in the markets for computer servers and media player programs,' says the report.

'The Commission is worried that otherwise Microsoft will "bundle" more features into Longhorn, shutting out rivals,' it adds.

Microsoft has argued that product integration provides a better experience for the end user. This may well be the case - Apple, for example, has said similar things - but EU has to decide whether integration also means exclusion, any benefits of which would take some proving.