Needless to say, the VB app worked fine and became the product.
I wouldn't choose VB myself, but when it's between VB and C++ for simple data pushing, I would indeed choose VB.
Let's say it like this: if you need to move stuff, would you choose a F1 car or a minivan. I would pick the minivan.
If you were building an application that does little more than populate forms with data from a database and then update the database, VB was totally adequate. The most important part of the job was the DB and query design.
Huh? No no, on the contrary: Straightforward CRUD apps, that's exactly what VB was built for and excels at. Only Delphi is better.
The thing about "Visual" C++ is that it isn't (or at least wasn't, last I looked) really very visual at all. And that sucks for building simple in-house CRUD apps, where the VB / Delphi drag-and-drop UI builder paradigm is a huge productivity multiplier.
Today you'd probably just use browser-based UI.
Also if you've spent time in corporate development (rather than a software company), I think this scenario is a common one. If you show management a prototype that works, they're going to ask why we don't just make that the product. And if you don't have a good reason... you don't have a good reason.