[Namssa]

Thanks for all the feedback.

Just an important clarification: as you can see in the videos I posted, the new Ribbon is collapsible.
If you click twice on its tab, it hides it freeing up screen space.

New User Interface Design: Office for Mac Ribbon

Another big addition to the Office 2011 suite is a ribbon that's at the core of our next-generation Office for Mac user experiences. We took your feedback and haven't completely rearranged what you know and love: the new design is an evolution of the Office 2008 Elements Gallery and uses the classic Mac menu and Standard Toolbar giving you the best of both worlds. You can even collapse the ribbon and the Toolbar for more screen space or for the more advanced users who rely on keyboard shortcuts. Together these tools make it easy to find and discover new and frequently used commands. In fact, more than 80 percent of the most used features live in the default view of our new user experience so you don't have to waste time finding the tool you need. Built using the latest Mac OS X technologies, the ribbon delivers a modern and fluid experience and also gives you a more consistent experience across platforms, which is key to productivity as 75 percent of Mac users also use a PC.

And to comment again about this being a Microsoft concept, other than that we should take what is good no matter what the source is, many other non MST programs are using the Ribbon now, including Autodesk products, dreamweaver, and the alpha of the next OpenOffice (named Renaissance).