I think Microsoft ended up in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation vis-a-vis VisualBasic. They had decided to put a lot of effort into .NET - and they also had a large VB developer community. Consider their options:

• Don't put VB on .NET, and instead move it forward independently.
• Put VB in .NET, and make whatever changes are required

They went for the latter strategy - and are currently getting buckets full of cold water over it. Larry O'Brien has another column on this in SD Times this week. However, consider the reaction had they taken the first path (as the large crowd of MVP's objecting to the second path says they should have). Instead of "keep VB", MS would be hearing cries of "You are aren't serious about VB - it's an orphan".

Once they decided to go down the .NET platform path, they were going to anger the existing VB community no matter what they did. This is a choice every vendor has to make when they decide to make a dramatic move. Look at VisualWorks - we are in the process of building Pollock as a replacement for the existing GUI system. There are a lot of customers out there with significant investments in the current system (both in terms of actual systems and in terms of years of problem solving knowledge). We don't have a real choice though - the current framework doesn't get us to where we need to go (native widgets). That doesn't make the transition any easier though, and that's what MS is hearing from its (much larger) customer base now.

There's an interesting (and not much commented on) thing at work here as well. Consider the MVP's - they are influential (and knowledgeable) people in the VB community. What does VB.NET do for them? Well, it reduces their current knowledge base in VB to ashes, for one thing. If I were an outside consultant - instead of the Cincom Smalltalk Product Manager - the switch to Pollock would make me a little nervous on those grounds alone - a lot of the knowledge I have on the current GUI system is going to become useless once Pollock comes in. Some of those MS MVP's have had the same fear about their current VB knowledge, I'm sure.