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Microsoft's Surface lineup wasn't an out and out success, but it did change our idea of what's possible. If there's one thing pretty much every person who handled a Surface liked, it was the excellent design and build quality. Could that one day translate into a smartphone from the Redmond company? A new Nokia SEC filing suggests as much.

In the note, Nokia cautiously looks at the possibility of a Surface smartphone, and how that might affect the Finnish company going forward. "This could lead Microsoft to focus more on their own devices and less on mobile devices of other manufacturers that operate on the Windows Phone platform, including Nokia," the filing says.

Nokia has flourished over the past several months under the Windows Phone platform, most recently achieving success with its Lumia 920. A Surface phone would certainly put strain on Nokia's renewed vigor, similarly to how manufacturing partners reacted to Microsoft's RT and Windows 8 Pro devices.

Nokia's filing is worded in "what if" scenarios, so there may not actually be a Surface device inbound. But a similar filing from Nokia last year mentioned no such possibility, which could mean that something could be coming. Maybe.

In an interview late last year, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer casually commented on the possibility of a Windows Phone 8 device from Microsoft. "It is absolutely clear that there is an innovation opportunity on the scene between hardware and software and that is a scene that must not go unexploited at all by Microsoft," Ballmer said.