Yes the
new Microsoft Office 2010 uses the
Ribbon on all of the software within the Office Suit. This is direction that they are going. They say that this new ribbons on 2010 edition are more customizable, though I haven't much time to tinker around all the visual/skin controls yet. Outlook looks quite impressive, they have improved that archival looking old style, it's more modern now. It looks more like Photoshop-like than an ordinary mail client, which is not actually.
I had been using
2002 and
2003 before the
2007 came, and I remember that I had had difficulties with getting used to the new Ribbon interface on 2007, but after giving it some time and allowing myself some time, I've got used to it fine, though I'd still prefer the complete customizable interface of 2003, but new Office suits since MS Office 2007 offers many more improvements that outweighs such a desire. That is of course for those of us who who want and need to produce more developed pieces, but those users who just need to write simple text documents can well do with much cheaper Works or in fact with Wordpad as well.
That's true that MS Office is going, and actually has already gone down to the DeskTop publishing route and for those who may need that kind of software, it's not bad at all. You can produce any documents and charts and publish them with Office without needing those Adobe Suits, and if you have those as well, then the Office offers a much simpler support along (at the first stages of) that highly professional line.
It's possible to check the functionality of Office 2010 on Microsoft site, then proceed with the download:http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/default.aspx================================================