Microsoft Office Videos

Microsoft UK apparently commissioned Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant to do a (spoof) training video with Gervais playing David Brent. The first part runs for 20 minutes and the second for 17 minutes. They've been uploaded to Google Video and the good thing about this service is that you can download them. It's like watching the lost episode of The Office. Microsoft said on Tuesday it was investigating how two in-house training videos appeared on two Web sites. The videos, which popped up on YouTube and Google Video this month, were commissioned by Microsoft in 2004 as "a light-hearted way of getting our staff to think about the values they attach to working at Microsoft," a company spokeswoman said. The British series ended in 2003 with Gervais and co-writer Stephen Merchant saying there would be no further series. The Office is a mock documentary set in a company whose politically incorrect manager, David Brent, believes, wrongly, he is amusing and popular. By Tuesday, the videos had been pulled off the online video-sharing site YouTube. They remained on Google Video and Microsoft declined to say if it had try to have them pulled from that site. "These videos were produced for internal use and were never intended to be viewed by the public," said the spokeswoman said. "We are actively working to investigate how and why they have appeared now." Here is the link - http://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives/005589.html