Microsoft has dropped itself into an astonishing PR disaster by offending audience members at a Windows Azure cloud presentation in Norway, as a bizarre dance performance referenced vulgar puns based on sex and drugs.

In a bid to get the crowd revved up for the occasion at the Norwegian Developers Conference last week, scantily-clad women gyrated to a raunchy rhyme which included the lyric, "The words ‘Micro' and ‘Soft' don't apply to my penis".

Further exacerbating the staggering episode of misjudgement from the Microsoft planners, the words "or vagina" were included in brackets below the line to be inclusive to female onlookers as the lyrics flashed up on screens.

One audience member, developer Meg Natraj, tweeted that the female reference was "more degrading than just being left out". The song-makers also cited drugs with the line, "I use CCS as my LSD, and XML is my ecstasy", while a repeated chorus of, "I'm a software developer, I'm developing, and I'm here to party," failed to distract audience members from the offence already caused.

A short, stunned silence at the end of the routine, which can be seen in the video above, highlighted the crowd's bewilderment.

Microsoft has since issued an apology via the Windows Azure YouTube page, which reads, "This week's Norwegian Developer's Conference included a skit that involved inappropriate and offensive elements and vulgar language. We apologize to our customers and our partners and are actively looking into the matter."