Microsoft will this week appeal the anti-trust decision, and record breaking fine, imposed on the company by Mario Monti and his Competition Commission G-men. Microsoft will file in the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg this week. It says the ruling would hamper its ability to innovate.

Back in March the Competition Commission hit the software giant with a €497m fine and ordered it to offer a version of Windows without Media Player. The ruling also ordered Microsoft to open up interfaces for its server software. Monti found that Microsoft "broke European Union competition law by leveraging its near monopoly in the market for PC operating systems (OS) onto the markets for work group server operating systems and for media players".

As well as appealing the decision Microsoft will also be asking the court to stop such punishments until after the appeal is heard. This could delay effective action for years.

In April Microsoft settled privately with one of its leading critics, Sun Microsystems, for almost $2bn. ®

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