Clearly, there's some opportunities there for Microsoft employees. Perhaps this office is a smart move for Apple, especially in the wake of the Microsoft lay-offs.
Microsoft cuts another 3,000 employees as part of its layoff of 18,000 [webmasterworld.com]

Apple is moving into enemy territory and has started an engineering office in Seattle, its first in the Northwest.

Like other California companies setting up shop in the shadow of Microsoft, Apple is attracted by the area’s software talent, particularly engineers with expertise building online infrastructure.

The nucleus of the Seattle office is a group of former F5 engineers working on network infrastructure. That may be just what Apple needs to accelerate its cloud offerings and narrow the gap with leading cloud services, which were largely built in Seattle.Apple to Open Seattle Office [blogs.seattletimes.com]