"A series of letters were sent to a number of companies active in the information and consumer technology sector," it said in a statement, confirming a story in the Financial Times.

"The purpose of these requests for information is to enable the commission to assess the conditions offered by Microsoft for the licensing of their IT-related technology" to hardware makers, it said.

The Brussels commission sent Microsoft a "statement of objections" at the start of August, giving it a "last opportunity" to answer the charges in the long-running EU anti-trust case.

If upheld, the Commission's preliminary findings will require Microsoft to offer remedies such as such as stripping Media Player from the Windows operating system and revealing product secrets for its servers to rivals.

The commission stressed Thursday that the letters sent to computer makers did not mean that any decisions have been taken in the case.

"Such letters are a routine step and do not signify that the commission has reached any conclusions as to the assessmnent of these licensing conditions under the competition rules," it said.

"The commission has not contacted Microsoft on these issues because the fact-finding process is at a very early stage," it said, adding that the contents of the letters was "confidential."

Fines of up to 10 percent of the company's global revenues could also be in the offing. Microsoft could therefore be forced to stump up 3.2 billion dollars (2.8 billion euros) to the EU, after posting revenues of 32.19 billion dollars in 2002-3.

However, past EU fines against companies accused of monopolistic practices have ranged from 0.1 percent to just over 1.0 percent of the firm's revenues.

SPACE.WIRE