The other day i saw on TV (i think it was CNN or BBC news) in this electronics convention there was this tablet (closer in size to the infamous iPad) that ran MeeGo, it wasn't by Nokia; the stuff there hasn't been released to the general public yet though, but how bad would it be for Nokia if they aren't the ones introducing MeeGo to the public?

Not bad at all It would show MeeGo has interest by vendors and actually, as advertised, is open

They were probably discussing the WeTab, which is apparently the first device to be released running MeeGo. They had it on stage at IDF on Tuesday, and at the MeeGo Developer Day. Said tablet is on sale to people in Germany at least.

This has no bearing or impact on Nokia, in fact a 3rd party picking up MeeGo is only good for the platform as a whole. MeeGo itself will largely be invisible to end-users, with the hardware vendor providing the user interface that is seen on devices.

If it was an Atom-based cpu then Intels version is much further on than Nokia's implementation.

Which is no surprise considering Intel started Meego way before Nokia.

I thought Nokia weren't interested in tablet computers - they want to concentrate on mobile phone devices.

Not being the first means end user experience feedback before releasing the final product. Of course, if WePad deliver a very poor user experience because problems of their own, not from Meego itself, could give a perceived disadvantage whatever brings Nokia after.

There's only one MeeGo. Vendor customizations are a completely different thing.

I'm pretty sure they started at the same time since Meego is a joined effort and didn't exist before LF, Nokia, Intel & co. joined forces to create it.

I was expecting Nokia to strongly associate their image to MeeGo, releasing a flagship product running it to boost MeeGo's image, perhaps even launching a whole line of devices runing MeeGo, a netbook/tablet computer, a NIT, a cell phone, a gaming device etc

Like said above it would be great for us and for Intel/Nokia if other manufacturers are jumping in and i don't think it's anything out from Nokia, quite the opposite.

MeeGo handheld UX as far as the big success goes will more than probably all on Nokia's shoulders.
For tablets i hope we see great variety of manufacturers. Hopefully Nokia too in the next ~5 months time as they are probably the most MeeGo locked manufacturer that will have future and current services and "in-house" apps made for it.

I was under the assumption that Meego used to be called Moblin - which Intel were involved in?

Moblin was Intel's custom netbook-oriented distribution. MeeGo is basically a mixture of some technologies from each with Qt as the primary UI toolkit. And unlike Moblin, MeeGo belongs to the Linux Foundation and not Intel.

All the interesting things seem to be happening under Tablet and Handset development, as the Netbook stuff just looks mostly like Moblin (but not completely.)