Bill Gate's Microsoft now has only weeks left until the European Commission decides whether to take steps toward fining it up to $5 million (€3.9 million) a day, a Commission spokesman said yesterday.

"Within a matter of weeks, rather than months, we will have to decide whether we are satisfied that they are complying with the remedies to our satisfaction," spokesman Jonathan Todd said.

"And if they're not, we'll have to decide whether we'll begin the proceedings to begin daily fines."

The commission, which polices competition in the 25-nation European Union, fined the world's leading software company a record €497 million on March 24th, 2004, and ordered it to change the way it does business. "The Commission is expecting things to happen in the coming few weeks, and Microsoft remains fully committed to complying with the Commission decision," Microsoft said.

The decision required Microsoft to make its Windows system available without Windows Media Player, so that computer makers could buy alternative software to play films and music.

Should the commission decide that Microsoft has taken enough time to comply with the decision, it could open a new procedure against the company to fine it for noncompliance. Microsoft so far has not met requirements that it comply with the remedies to the satisfaction of the commission. The fine permitted is up to 5 per cent of a company's daily worldwide turnover.

The remedies would not affect Microsoft's appeal of the Commission's decision, which is before the EU's Court of First Instance in Luxembourg.

That court took another tiny step in the case yesterday, admitting the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, a business group, as a formal party in oral proceedings on the grounds that it has an interest in the outcome of the case.

That group includes companies such as IBMInternational Business Machines, software company Oracle, Finnish phone maker Nokia and Linux software distributor Red Hat.