When I was on the Office Tips and Tricks team at Microsoft, Evan Archilla wrote a script for us to use when explaining The Ribbon to users. In my experience, users respond positively once you explain why Microsoft changed the familiar user interface of menus and toolbars and replaced it with the fluent user interface of The Ribbon.
Here's the script:
In previous releases of Microsoft Office, people interacted with the applications through a system of menus, toolbars, task panes, and dialog boxes. While this system successfully provided access to a wide variety of features, it became increasingly challenging to add capabilities in a way that made it easy for people to take advantage of them. Finding and learning about new features took more time and effort than many people were willing to give. Many information workers found themselves using outdated and inefficient processes for completing tasks or sacrificing their document potential altogether.
For example, the original Microsoft Word 1.0 contained 50 menu items. In contrast, Word 2003 contained almost 300 menu items. Likewise, Word 1.0 shipped with 100 commands. Word 2003 released with more than 1,500 commands. Making these advanced features easier to find and use was a key goal in the design of the 2007 release.
That last paragraph is the key - 1500 commands! I like to add some proof to this message by asking the audience if they knew that they had the ability to save document versions in previous versions of Word. Of course, this functionality is not in Office 2007 and users rely on SharePoint to version their documents but it's a great way to prove to your users that menus and toolbars were hiding features from them. If you're doing a demo, then show them where Table of Contents and Watermarks are in Word 2007 - two other features that few users knew how to do in previous versions but they've been there the whole time. In just a few minutes at your next staff meeting, you can turn around people's perceptions of The Ribbon. Rejoice at the fact that Header and Footer is finally back on the Insert tab and use this chance to remind them how cool Live Preview is. Right click on any command and add it to the Quick Access Toolbar - I'm surprised at how many new Office 2007 users haven't added any buttons to the one toolbar they do have.
Your power users will be the most frustrated since they're the people who have had the menus and toolbars memorized the longest. Direct them to the command reference guides at office.microsoft.com. These allow users to click in an Office 2003 screen on the button they want. Then, the screen fades to an Office 2007 screen and highlights where the button is on the ribbon. Try it! What I'm trying to say is that The Ribbon is such a silly excuse to avoid deploying Office 2007 and it's not going to take millions of dollars to train everyone.