That was some classic business pressure tactics. The sort of thing a massive multinational corporation would have a lot of experience in. The sort of thing a massive multinational corporation suddenly blindsided by this with a lot of financial interest in the situation would be interested in doing....while at the same time mitigating risk by trying to pull those same employees into the parent company if things don't go their way.

Edit: Now that I think about it, they also managed to get the vast majority of employees to 'join together' on the issue making it (psychologically) easier for them to 'join together' in choosing where to jump ship to. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but it's just a really clever move on Microsoft's part.