Simple. Jolla leaders were depending on receiving a round of funding in November. They essentially bet the entire company on it. If they had received it, the most logical thing to do would be to maximize the Tablet output, to get as many devices in the hands of users as possible, and encourage new apps to be written by developers. This would in turn provide more advertising for Sailfish, which would boost their ability to encourage manufacturers to become licensees.

But, of course, everything was dependent on getting that additional funding.

It was probably a decent bet for a startup to make. If that funding had come through, Jolla would have had one of the few alternative OSs this year that was still ascendent. That alone might have made manufacturers more interested in Sailfish...