Nokia told us in September 2008 that the term "internet tablet" would not be used any more for a future Maemo 5 device. Of course they didn't say then that there'd be a different form factor. It was more along the lines of "the device can do so much more than just browsing the web, calling it an internet tablet would be misleading."

At that time, of course, hardly anybody expected that it was the "tablet"-part they actually didn't want to continue, not the "internet"-part.

Then, IIRC (and don't rely on me too much, I remember a lot of stuff lately that appears to never have happened), Reggie was told about this and agreed that when there wouldn't be a device marketed as "internet tablet", a forum named internettablettalk doesn't make sense any longer.

So: Yes, all of this was planned because as of September 2008 it was known there wouldn't be any more internet tablets. It's not a wicked plot behind the scenes, it's official and well known.

The only thing that was not known is that they'd not only change the name for marketing reasons, but also the form factor.