Brussels, 27/01/2003 (Agence Europe) - Competition Commissioner Mario Monti said last Friday, on the fringe of the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland), that the inquiry into the trade practices of the information technology giant Microsoft was being finalised and that a decision was expected "in the first part of this year". According to Reuters, the Commissioner specified that all options were still open but that the decision should take into account rulings made in the United States in the various affairs for which the world software leader is being prosecuted, and that it should be to the consumers' advantage. We recall that the Commission's competition services had opened an inquiry in 2000 on the automatic integration of Media Player software in the Windows system, to the detriment of RealAudio and Apple technologies. Miscrosoft thus takes advantage of its dominant position on the user systems' market to take a hold of the software market. The European Executive also suspects Microsoft of having conceived Windows in a way that ensures it works better with its own server software, Windows NT, to the detriment of rivals using Linux or other versions. Last November, the US justice, which was also inquiring into similar Microsoft practices on its territory, had reached an amicable agreement with Microsoft whereby the latter undertook to allow more leeway to its rivals to propose alternatives to the Windows system. When asked about the similarities of the European inquiry with that carried out in the US, the Commission pointed out that, at the time, it had its own rules but that it was going to examine whether the American decision comprised significant elements before presenting its conclusions.