J Allard is the Microsoft executive credited with shepherding the development of the Xbox and Zune, and now it seems he might have left the company; that's the rumor going around, at least, courtesy of Mary-Jo Foley, who's been chasing whether Allard's on sabbatical or has left Microsoft altogether. According to her report (and as subsequently followed up by sites such as Kotaku), Allard may have fled the reservation after Microsoft killed the Courier tablet project, which was apparently his baby in some capacity.

J Allard's official biography page on the Microsoft Website says he's "responsible for the technical infrastructure and user experiences related to products and services of the Entertainment & Devices (E&D) division." In addition to the Xbox and Zune initiatives, he's also credited with shipping more than 30 Microsoft products, shaping the company's Internet strategy, and being a "founding member" of its "Windows NT and TCP/IP product families."

The last time that official bio page was updated? June 24, 2008. If Allard's indeed on sabbatical--or gone entirely--Microsoft is evidently keeping that quiet until it can conjure up a suitable follow-up strategy.

Brains-wise, Allard is not someone a company should lose. The Xbox represented a clear success for Microsoft during a period when many of its other flagship initiatives--including Windows Vista--took a critical and commercial drubbing. If the Zune HD had been released a few years earlier, Microsoft's position in the portable media player arena might be more substantial; and as it stands, the Zune HD is a fine product probably deserving of at least a little more recognition.

Moreover, I dug Courier, or at least the concept that leaked to the media: Two touch screens that folded on a central hinge, book-style, and allowed users to do everything from write and draw longhand to Web surf. If manufacturers want to beat Apple's iPad in the consumer-tablet arena (or at least steal respectable market share), building something like Courier could give their own unit that "wow" factor necessary to carve out some mind and market share.

But as we all know, Microsoft wiped out the Courier project with extreme prejudice, simultaneously acknowledging and ending its existence in the same head-spinning official statement.

"At any given time, across any of our business groups, there are new ideas being investigated, tested and incubated. It's in Microsoft's DNA to continually develop and incubate new technologies to foster productivity and creativity," Frank Shaw, Microsoft's corporate vice president of communications, wrote in a missive widely circulated to media on April 30. "The Courier project is an example of this type of effort and its technologies will be evaluated for use in future Microsoft offerings."

If Allard has indeed departed, he joins a number of other executives over the past few months. Earlier in May, reports stated that Alexander Gounares, corporate vice president and CTO of Microsoft's online services division, had left to become AOL's CTO. That followed news from a week earlier that Bill Veghte, senior vice president of the global Windows business, had become executive vice president of Hewlett-Packard's Software and Solutions Business. In a previous posting, I suggested that the departure of a few executives did not constitute a full-fledged Microsoft brain drain, a position I continue to stand behind--but Allard's departure (if confirmed) will be a dangerous signifier if it heralds the flight of Redmond's more innovative figureheads. If Allard is gone, I suspect he'll pop up somewhere like Sony next.

I've asked Microsoft for comment, but gotten nothing back yet. I'm expecting a standard-issue "no comment."