[WJW]

Why do you think they only targeted Borland like that?

[Spooky23]

MS was trying to pivot away from their 90s platforms, and Borland was a potential destination for customers jumping ship from stuff like VB.

It was a different time. Even dinosaurs like IBM were still competitive in some verticals.

[wombatmobile]

Because the objective of Microsoft's recruitment was not just to acquire talent, it was to diminish their leading competitor.

[CRConrad]

In a nutshell: Because Borland, more than anyone else, had hugely superior development tools (compilers and IDEs) for Windows.