From the WinFS Team blog: Update to the Update.
Is WinFS dead?
Yes and No. Yes, we are not going to ship WinFS as a separate, monolithic software component. But the answer is also No - the vision remains alive and we are moving the technology forward. A lot of the technology really was database stuff – and we’re putting that into SQL and ADO. But some of the technology, especially the end user value points, are not ready, and we’re going to continue to work on that in incubation. Some or all of these technologies may be used by other Microsoft products going forward. - Quentin Clark
Quentin should have explained better in his update post last Friday, the Microsoft community was left wondering and the bozo bloggers had a field day. How can someone who blogs on a Mac take it sooooo personally when a Microsoft Technology is delayed or discontinued?
Even Mini-Microsoft jumped into the fray.
Let's just hope ADO.Net 3.0 is everything we hope it will be.