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>> MS and its partners and customers have invested way, way too much money in this platform to do away with it or let it die anytime soon. .NET is no VFP, which was allowed to wither on the wine because a) MS didn't have a huge investment in it and b) because it was seen as cannibalizing sales from other, more lucrative (for MS) products. When it comes to truly important products, MS will stick with them no matter what. Such as C++, which has been on the catalog for a long time already, and is now .NET based.
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>M$ and its partners invested a lot into VB Classic and where it's now? I wouldn't be surprised if M$ replace .NET with the "next grate thing" in the near future. As history shows, the interests of users/customers never was a top priority for M$.

True enough. However, the progression form C to C++ to C# has been an evolutionary path for MS much more than Basic, VB Classic and VB.NET. Where VB broke backward compatibility big time between Classic and .NET, the "C path" has pretty much moved along without major disruptions. Part of the reason for this is probably the fact that Richie & Co. developed the original C language "right" from the get-go, and that in turn has allowed for a smooth evolutionary path (well C++ was a jump, but retained backward compatibility nevertheless) Not so with the original MS DOS Basic by Bill Gates through VB.NET :-)

Looking at the progression with .NET towards the next big thing (SIlverlight and beyond) I see a pretty smooth path ahead, and that's why I really don't think so MS is going to get off this path anytime soon, if ever. Unlike Apple, MS is a real stickler for backward compatibility (except for VB, of course), and that's a good thing...