Microsoft denies Office for iPad report

A photograph supposedly of Microsoft Office running on Apple's iPad is a fake, although confusion remains over whether the product is on the way.

Rupert Murdoch's The Daily iPad-only newspaper yesterday claimed that it had been given a hands-on demonstration of the working prototype of Office products - including Word, Excel and Powerpoint - on the iPad.

The report claimed that Microsoft had already completed design work on Office for iPad, and would "soon" submit the apps for approval in the Apple App Store, meaning they could launch in the "coming weeks".

However, ZDnet says that Microsoft has since denied The Daily's report. The US firm has also claimed that the photograph used is not an image of a real Microsoft software product.

A Microsoft spokesperson told the website: "The Daily story is based on inaccurate rumours and speculation."

However, The Daily's editor Peter Ha responded to a question from ZDnet's Mary-Jo Foley on Twitter last night, writing: "We didn't fabricate either image. A working version of the app was demonstrated to us by someone at Microsoft."

Microsoft is definitely known to be developing Office apps for tablets running the new Windows 8 software, although it has not indicated whether this will extend to other devices such as the iPad.

In a report last November, The Daily said that Office for iPad will come as a "suite" of four apps - Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote - which will incorporate the new Metro design in Windows 8, optimised for touchscreen devices.

OneNote is the only Office app already offered on the iPad.