@GossiTheDog Hmmm... I dunno about the "things are amicable". I've seen a CTO go under similar circumstances in a similar org.
The rumour from that example was that the CTO was adamant that roughly the same thing would happen again if the outsourcer wasn't booted soon/significant moves were made to start relying less on them... and the rest of the Board (essentially CEO + CFO) told them that wasn't an option.