Amazon.com switches search providers from Google to Windows Live

Seattle (WA) - In a clear demonstration that the #3 player in a market can still clinch a major customer, that come-from-behind challenger, everyone’s favorite underdog, Microsoft, scored a silent victory today as Amazon.com quietly changed its A9 service’s search provider from Google to Windows Live.

There was no announcement this morning ; A9 users simply noticed the trademark change, and some users also noticed how some combined-term search queries - including, for instance, "Amazon.com" MSN - turned up blank results.

The original purpose of A9 was to enable Amazon.com users to receive combined search results on topics, both from a Web-oriented search engine and from Amazon’s library of books and other materials for sale. Along the way, A9 was originally intended to collect some information from registered users, mainly regarding the topics they typically search, in order to tailor Amazon’s offerings to its customers.

When Amazon announced A9 back in the spring of 2004, it paraded Google before the press as its closely-held search partner. But from the beginning, observers wondered whether a search provider with its own prominent shopping service - in this case, Froogle - would be perceived as competing with Amazon...and if so, which service would analysts perceive as being "on the side ?" Microsoft, most notably, does not have its own prominent shopping service, on its own side or anyone else’s, which may have been key to Amazon’s decision to quietly switch sides.