Even Cobol was able to be ported for NET- and without having to be rewritten to use ADO.NET.

MS has already begun the necessary changes to improve data handling in NET. But a lot of us are now thinking that the whole development paradigm is going to change anyway. In 5 years, the concept of ubiquitous OS or development tool regarded as a "feature" may be history.

Example- say China floods the world market with $20 cellphones using the latest "Hopen" OS variant. Hopen will be the target OS for millions of potential customers wanting games and applications. It is unlikely customers will be persuaded that some other phone OS/development channel is so much better than Hopen that they need to buy another phone. Especially if popular apps work on the cellphone browser/design surface that comes with Hopen. Whether the backend system driving the app was written in Java, Net or Open Sesame won't matter a jot to somebody who only cares about the user experience on their own phone.

As the parrot says in the ancient Pirate Adventure: Tides be a-changing, matey. ;-)