Microsoft has assimilated and destroyed so many IDE vendors, what makes Borland think they will be successful. Even if they add features that Microsoft does not support, the VS IDE was built to support plug-ins so that other vendors can create and extend the Microsoft footprint. This capability was brilliant on Microsoft's part and it will enable Microsoft to surpass whatever any other IDE vendor has to offer.
Have I missed something here?
From what I understand Borland is not trying to compete with Microsoft in the IDE space, but rather targeting cross-platform development with their new suite of tools ( much like Delphi / Kylix provided some cross-platform development in the past).
From a ZDNet article:
With C# Builder, Borland is offering an alternative to Microsoft with life cycle tools that work with both Microsoft's .Net and the competing Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) development model.
Using C# Builder, a programmer could take pieces of code written to the J2EE or Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) model and have that code work within a .Net application, Borland executives said.
Microsoft's own C# tool can share data with separate J2EE applications via Web services protocols, but can only incorporate .Net-specific code within a C# application. Microsoft has typically partnered for application life cycle tools, such as modeling and management.
If I remember correctly, I heard some talk originally about Borland's tools compiling to some intermediate language which was then compiled down to either MSIL or Java bytecode upon deployment.
If this is the goal, I assume they're probably looking to insulate the developer from the underlying base class libraries in some fashion, letting the compilers or their own native libraries do the heavy lifting. I don't know their specific implementation strategy, but it's an interesting idea.
Then again, as neat as it might be technically, I don't know how useful the product is or how viable the market. This may be a big generalization, but for the most part enterprises don't mix a lot of J2EE or .NET. The typical organization will standardize on a single technology and platform if possible, especially with custom development, because you commodify the skillset, thus lowering construction and maintenance costs.
Maybe I'm wrong, but in that sense I see the biggest benefit is probably in interoperability instead of integration.