When Nokia Microsoft announced Strategic Partnership in the last week, they only mentioned that they'll be using Windows Phone as the OS for their flagship smartphones, and that concept smartphones are already underway. However, they fail to mention about customization of Windows Phone 7, stuff that Samsung and HTC do, which is the result of HTC Hub and Samsung TouchWiz.
In an interview with Nokia VP Niklas Savander at Mobile World Congress, Phone Scoop managed to understand a bit more on the company's plans to rework the Windows Phone user experience, a user experience that's been essentially closed to OEMs thus far apart from the occasional tile here or added menu item there.
Turns out that Microsoft has given Nokia outright full authority for deep customization of the platform, though it's likely only to do that by pushing changes back to Microsoft for inclusion in future releases that would be available to every manufacturer, not just Nokia.
Apparently Nokia and Microsoft doesn't want to do anything to the software that would put the company at risk of getting delayed updates.