While Microsoft are strongly pushing their Bing search engine through their new Windows Phone operating system, and not providing any way for users to change that to another search engine should they want to.  Windows Phone users in the Russian Federation will instead be having their own Russian search engine on the smartphones.

Yandex is the most popular search engine in Russia with almost half of the market.  It will be the default search engine on the Samsung Omnia W and Nokia LUmia phones when they are released there, and HTC are said to be readying an update to apply to existing phones.

In a press release, Yandex hailed the benefits of Microsoft’s smartphone OS saying…

“Windows Phone is a new operating system with great potential. It is bound to catch attention in Russia. It’s good to know that the Windows Phone users in this country will have familiar Yandex search on their new devices.”

Windows Phone is very tightly integrated with Bing which powers everything from the main web search to the Local Scout feature that displays information determined by your GPS position.  It may mean that some work has had, or will have to be done under the bonnt of Windows Phone to get it all to work, and even then the integration might not be complete or seamless.

This is an interesting move and could mean that in countries like China and some middle-eastern countires where languages are as different as that of Russia, that this concession could help power Windows Phone to a greater success than Apple of Google have so far been able to achieve.

Microsoft said of the announcement…

“Windows Phone is a new operating system with great potential. It is bound to catch attention in Russia. It’s good to know that the Windows Phone users in this country will have familiar Yandex search on their new devices.”

No doubt some other countries will be watching this with interest.