An embarrassing leak or another case of viral marketing?

The official line from Microsoft is that it's investigating how two hilarious training videos starring Ricky Gervais as his character in the hit British TV series The Office made their way onto You Tube and Google.

According to news reports, the software giant says the videos were supposed to be for internal use only. YouTube has since removed the 20- and 17-minute videos at the request of an apparently very concerned copyright owner Microsoft.

Well, that's the official line anyway.

Truth is more and more tech companies are finding that "leaks" are becoming a great way of viral marketing, and in any case, hundreds of thousands have watched the supposedly clandestine video and given it five star reviews, reports The Gazette.

Watch the video here and you decide.