I'm not going to argue either way on whether MS should maintain support for VB6. For that check out Geoff Appleby's post found through a Stefano Demiliani post (check out Stefano's "email rule"). I will say that the petition to MS to continue investing in VB is downright looney. You'll find it at http://classicvb.org/petition/. "ClassicVB." I love that. Classic Coke is one thing, Classic VB? Gee-zus! That tells you something right there.
As a Microsoft stockholder, I guess if it makes economic sense to continue to support VB, then do it. But I agree with cancelling support, 100%. If my MSFT falls to the mid-20s and stays there for years as a result, so be it. No, wait. Its already done that...
On the other hand, as a developer pondering VB in 2005 my only thought is that I am thankful. Thankful that I migrated my last VB6 COM component to a C# Web Service two years ago and that migrating every company application to .NET was a foregone conclusion. Thankful that at this point in time as we anticipate the move from .NET 1.0 to .NET 2.0 that I don't spend the precious hours of my workday and the years of my career that I will never get back receiving a paycheck to work in Visual Basic 6.
I do understand the business justification for keeping certain VB6 apps in use and requiring a mimimum of developer support to do so, but I can't understand anyone in a job interview saying, "You need a Visual Basic 6 programmer? I get to work in VB6??? I'M YOUR MAN!"