Microsoft's decision to kill the Courier tablet may have cost it one of its best-known employees, an investigation found this week. Chief Technical Officer J Allard, who went to the side project Alchemy Ventures after heading up the Xbox and later Zune teams, is believed to have gone on "sabbatical" but now may never come back. He was allegedly already uncertain about the company but decided to leave after Courier was axed before it was even made public.
