At least on the XBox, Gates and Allard interacted a fair bit. From the book "Opening the XBox": "In the next meeting with Gates, Allard, Ferroni, and Thomason

At least on the XBox, Gates and Allard interacted a fair bit. From the book "Opening the XBox": "In the next meeting with Gates, Allard, Ferroni, and Thomason broke the news that the machine wouldn't be able to run the full Windows OS...Hase says he admired Allard for 'having the stones' to 'rip Windows to shreds'... Allard recalled later, 'I think that was the closest Bill ever got to strangling me. But he ultimately came around.'" The impression I get is that Allard has had his share of interaction with Gates, which is why I think this email thing wasn't news to Allard. But I suspect this time Allard couldn't convince Gates and so it was killed. But this just me being a pundit speculator.