One of the things that makes Nokia’s smartphones so particularly shiny are Nokia’s top-notch designers, right? Maybe not. Microsoft’s revealed that it has “plenty of influence” over what goes into Nokia’s phones.
Speaking to Pocket-Lint, Casey McGee, Microsoft’s senior marketing manager for Windows Phone stated that
“Our relationship is so close we get hardware early and we have some say in how these things are designed. For an engineer or a designer it might feel a little bit different, but I think for people working with the developers and talking broadly about the phone I am very happy with the relationship and the ability to influence what they are doing.”
It’s hard to look at the Nokia Lumia 920 and not see elements of the Nokia N9, so quite how much this extends into actual hardware design as distinct from software design is a bit hard to say. Then again, Nokia’s future rests very solidly on the success (or failure) of Windows Phone, so perhaps having a big friend looking over your shoulder when you’re sketching out a new phone isn’t a bad idea after all.
[Pocket-Lint]