(Pocket-lint) - If you think Nokia is the one coming up with all the ideas for its range of Windows Phone smartphones, think again. Microsoft has told Pocket-lint that it has plenty of influence over what is and what isn't included.

"We enjoy having the variety that we do. We are so close to the process that it feels like our child too. Especially with Nokia," Casey McGee, Microsoft's senior marketing manager for Windows Phone, explained to Pocket-lint in a chat at Microsoft's headquarters in Seattle after we asked whether he was frustrated that his department didn't have its own hardware device like the Surface RT or the Xbox 360.

That belief that it is his "child too" is perhaps because Microsoft gets some say in how the phone is designed and built:

"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."

When you've got partners like that, who needs to build their own hardware?

Writing by Stuart Miles.