According to a report made by The Daily earlier this morning, Microsoft had wrapped up development of Microsoft Office for the iPad, complete with a Metro-style user interface. Hours later, Microsoft said to ZDNet that the image that The Daily had obtained wasn’t of any real Microsoft product. More interestingly, the same Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment in regards to whether or not Microsoft was even working on an iPad version of Office. A representative of The Daily, Peter Ha, went on to say (via Twitter) that it was most certainly not a fake, and that Office was demoed to them by someone directly from Microsoft.

Companies will sometime do this sort of thing to prevent people from getting too excited over an upcoming piece of software, just in case it ends up being a flop. Microsoft is most likely working on a version of Office for the iPad, but whether or not it will be released anytime soon can be anybody’s guess. While I’m hoping for The Daily’s claims to be true, it just seems a bit less likely now that Microsoft decided to step in. Nevertheless, whenever it happens to be released, I’ll purchase it immediately. Slimmed-down & limited apps (such as QuickOffice) just aren’t cutting it anymore.

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