Will this move make the Office 2007 Ribbon the new UI standard?
“For the last year or so, one of the questions I've been asked again and again has been: "Can I use the new Office user interface in my own product?"
Well, I'm pleased to finally be able to definitively answer the question. Today, we're announcing a licensing program for the 2007 Microsoft Office system user interface which allows virtually anyone to obtain a royalty-free license to use the new Office UI in a software product, including the Ribbon, galleries, the Mini Toolbar, and the rest of the user interface.”“There's only one limitation: if you are building a program which directly competes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, or Access (the Microsoft applications with the new UI), you can't obtain the royalty-free license.”
It certainly has potential in applications that require complex user/tool interaction and a dynamic interface…
