Microsoft v EU: It's decision day

Today, the representatives of the 15 EU states will announce one of the EC's most leaked decisions - that Microsoft is guilty of breaching antitrust laws.

But we won't find out what it is going to do about it until 24 March - and after one more meeting.

For the EC is in a quandary. Microsoft will not admit any wrongdoing. The Commission is used to preparing its cases and then negotiating its deals with whatever conglomerate it is pursuing. But Microsoft has not been playing the game.

The software giant will insist that it has done nothing wrong. So, much of the competition commission's time recently has been spent in producing a judgement that will stand up to a Microsoft appeal in the European Court.

Sifting through the leaks to various sources, it is thought that the Commission will demand that:

-Microsoft make more of its server code available to competitors

-The company find some way of giving manufacturers and consumers a choice of audiovisual players (this may go so far as to demand that Microsoft supply a stripped-down Windows without the software, letting suppliers install a rival, or it may demand that Microsoft itself offer rival products. The Financial Times has been told that the company will be given some sort of fudged choice of these three and other options)

- and there will be a huge headline-grabbing fine in euros (hundreds of millions) that may express Microsoft's turnover per hour in Europe.

Next Monday, the team of national antitrust experts will meet again to make their recommendations and, two days later, competition commissioner Mario Monti will let us all in on the open secret.

In between times, we can expect that there will be much consultation with national governments, with Microsoft and with Microsoft's competitors. Microsoft will undoubtedly be given time to get its house in order, for that is the commission's way of doing things.

And the commission will be hoping that it has finally managed to draft its ruling so that it will stand up in court.

Microsoft's first action will undoubtedly be to ask the EU Court of First Instance to suspend the ruling until its long, drawn-out case with the EU is completed in three or four years. The court can agree to this, deny it, or ask the EU and the company to put the case on fast-track, while freezing action in the meantime.

Microsoft's lawyers are, no doubt, standing by.