Well, maybe Nokia's tablet efforts are (were?) tied to Maemo, but MID/tablet oriented OSS platform also exists outside the Nokia universe.

Apart from the proprietary hardware bits and some packages specific to tablets, Maemo is largely based on other Open-Source projects and other interested parties (significant industry names with genuine interest in a more varied and competitive hardware market, unlike Nokia who's interest lies only in selling Nokia's own hardware...) might be more keen on supporting further development of Internet Tablets.

(FWIW, the 3rd hit of "Moblin MID" search is about Skype beta for moblin...)

Considering that since early 2008 (when Maemo 4 for the N8x0 tablet series was put into less than maintenance mode; the SSU feature was delivered last summer but for what??) Nokia has been working Maemo 5 (and later) with their emphasis not on the internet tablet form factor any longer, did they really have to co-opt the Internet Tablet (Talk) community under their Maemo brand?

The fate of the Nokia tablets does seem to be tied to Maemo 4 and Mer, but the future of the internet tablets in general may lie with another (perhaps a more communicative) software platform and other hardware vendors.