I didn't hear it "once"; it was a central theme of the transformation story; there were posters everywhere, email campaigns, leaflets, etc. all based on the "burning platform" standard playbook.
The reality is that the "burning platform" metaphor is a classic story repeated ad nauseam in business schools and business books; see this for example (from 2005):
The term “burning platform” is a mainstay in business lexicon for many years.
For those not familiar with its origin, the story goes something like this:
A man working on an oil platform in the North Sea awakened suddenly one night by an explosion. Amidst the chaos, he made his way to the edge of the platform. As a plume of fire billowed behind him, he decided to jump from the burning platform even though jumping is a risky option for the following reasons:
It was a 150-foot drop from the platform to the water.
There is debris and burning oil on the surface of the water.
If the jump into the 40°F water did not kill him, he would die of exposure within 15 minutes.
Luckily, the man survived the jump and hauled aboard a rescue boat shortly thereafter. When asked why he jumped, he replied, “Better probable death than certain death.” The point is the literally “burning” platform caused the radical change in his behavior.
http://www.imakenews.com/cppa/e_article000368179.cfm
(Please read the rest of this article to know how the story should be used in a business context; it really seems to describe the email, and it's prophetic since it was written six years ago).
Where do you think Mr. Elop heard this story in the first time? What's more likely, that he met an actual burning platform survivor, or that he read about this very common story in a business book?