Bing, Not Google, Will Power Search on Amazon’s New Kindle Fires

Google’s Android mobile operating system might power Amazon’s new Kindle Fire tablets, but that’s no guarantee that Google will be the default search provider on those devices.

Because for its new Kindle Fires — all of them — Amazon confirmed to AllThingsD that it has opted to go with Microsoft’s Bing as a default search engine, ousting Google from the spot it claimed on the first-generation Fire. Users can still switch their device’s default search to another provider, but the first search brand they’ll see is Bing.

And that’s a significant victory for Microsoft.

Remember, the Fire HD is not only Amazon’s marquee hardware offering, it’s a marquee service as well. And given the aggressive pricing the retailer has brought to its next generation tablets, it’s likely to sell quite a few of them this holiday season.

Which means Bing, Microsoft’s upstart search engine, stands to gain a fair bit of exposure in the months ahead. And while Microsoft is almost certainly paying for that privilege — indeed, the search deal it inked with Amazon may even play a role in the Kindle HD’s aggressive pricing — that will be money well spent if Bing sees a decent boost in market share from it. More so, if other hardware makers follow Amazon’s lead.