According to an official blog post by Microsoft on Thursday, the ‘Courier’ tablet project, which was expected to offer notable competition to Apple’s April-launched iPad, has been sidelined, at least for the present.

While tech blog Gizmodo had last year ‘leaked’ a demo video of the supposed Courier prototype, giving rise to speculations galore that the Microsoft tablet will be a potential iPad challenger, Microsoft had never officially announced the development of the device.

Noting that the Courier project was being axed by Microsoft, the company’s Corporate VP Communications Frank Shaw said on the official blog: “At any given time, we're looking at new ideas, investigating, testing, incubating them. It's in our DNA to develop new form factors and natural user interfaces to foster productivity and creativity.”

Saying that the Courier project was an example of Microsoft’s endeavors towards developing new form factors, Shaw added the project “will be evaluated for use in future offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time.”

As per a Wall Street Journal report, the Courier prototype – which Gizmodo earlier revealed had two seven-inch folding screens, a camera, WiFi, and touch as well as pen interface – was being developed by Microsoft’s new technologies lab, Alchemy Ventures, which has now been instructed to stall the development of the tablet.