I don't think .NET is going anywhere. If there is anything, it's expanding. VB6 (and I used to love it) should go away. It doesn't serve that much anymore. It's lacking a lot of programming paradigms. I call VB - object based in opposed to Object Oriented as it's lacking fundamental OO principles.

As far as nothing comes "near" VB is a very narrow minded remark. VB can't come even close to ability of .NET. In my days I've done things in VB which it wasn't meant for and although I've achieved what I wanted in my applications, it was a huge hassle.