Well... it might be a mistake to talk about one monolithic company called Nokia.

It's possible that the part of Nokia which sells Symbian-based devices is a bit worried by Maemo taking over the high end (yet that's clearly what Maemo is doing). It's a huge sprawling company and some of its departments overlap with each other in what they do.

The Maemo part of Nokia might have to tread carefully to avoid stepping on anyone else's toes. Implying that Maemo is only going to be a non-subsidised computing-oriented device is one way of being careful. But it's pretty clear which way Maemo is headed, with its newfound support for 3G, for ordinary phone calls, and with a smaller physical size. Give it a few more iterations and it will do everything Symbian currently does but much better.

But... a further complication is that Symbian isn't standing still either. It's due for a massive graphical overhaul soon which will make it look much more modern and attractive, leaving behind its softkey-based roots. How this overhaul will affect Maemo's position in Nokia is unclear to outsiders, but I wouldn't be surprised if rival elements within Nokia are competing to some extent.