Martin LaMonica of CNET News.com writes:

Facing protests from legions of Visual Basic developers, Microsoft is not backing down. But it is taking steps to keep them on friendly terms.

Microsoft remains “firm” in its plans to end free support for Visual Basic 6 at the end of the month, S. “Soma” Somasegar, the corporate vice president of Microsoft’s tools division, told CNET News.com.

That decision to end free support for Visual Basic 6, which was introduced in 1998, has caused an outcry among some of Microsoft’s developer customers, even those with close affiliations with the software giant.

Somasegar said that Microsoft’s intention is to ease the migration of customers to Visual Basic.Net, the current version of the product, which is is designed to quickly build Windows desktop applications that tap into databases.

[Microsoft Walks VB Tight Rope, continued]

Are there enough upset customers to make Microsoft change its mind? I wonder…