Don't everyone panic. Simply turn on ALL of the toolbars on Word2003 for example and see if you can fit 2 sentences on one screen.

Yes, they certainly did a major redo of the interface, which was long overdue. I've seen it at one of their seminars and it makes much more sense than the old approach and once you get used to it some - it's actually much more productive and gives you all of the options much quicker and easier.

The concept is that instead of having a stupid toolbar, you have this ribbon-like interface that the top (and all of the options ALWAYS only eat up that much space) and once you select a main option - the rest of the sub-options shown are relative to that main option.
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Don't everyone panic. Simply turn on ALL of the toolbars on Word2003 for example and see if you can fit 2 sentences on one screen.

Yes, they certainly did a major redo of the interface, which was long overdue. I've seen it at one of their seminars and it makes much more sense than the old approach and once you get used to it some - it's actually much more productive and gives you all of the options much quicker and easier.

The concept is that instead of having a stupid toolbar, you have this ribbon-like interface that the top (and all of the options ALWAYS only eat up that much space) and once you select a main option - the rest of the sub-options shown are relative to that main option.

Give it a chance - it'll grow on you. Change is always a tough thing to get used to but the toolbar situation they had was totally getting out of hand and it didn't make any sense to continue as before.

Kudos to MS for finally seeing the light and braving the innovation.