MPN, like you I have now read it, fortunately brief if lacking accuracy or clarity. One thought is frightening.
Is he old enough to remember when we didn't have a phone in every office and signals took hours? We had to talk to each other albeit lines to Group were hard to get.
Urgent emails may be ignored because if they were really urgent they would have been sent last week!
So he is also saying "not invented here" is no reason to reject an idea.