Looks like this will be one of the first questions people will ask if they start with the new Office 12. Yes, menus and toolbars are out and that is good. We now have a major change in the UI of the Office products. It is now all about ribbons, chunks, floaties, ... A whole new set of terms to learn :)

So, yesterday was Office 12 day. I followed the three sessions starting with a very good one on the new UI. Not a developer-oriented session but definitely useful if you want to be quickly up-to-speed with the new UI features. And man, it looks really cool. Second session then dived into the development one can do to customize all of this. RibbonX is for example a new object model (declarative - so XML-based) you can use to create your own ribbons and chunks. Last session was one on the new file format and the way you can start working with it from a developer perspective both on the client and the server .A whole new set of opportunities for ISVs in my opinion.

Want to see the new UI? Mark has a posting with some screendumps.