Saudi/German Joint Venture to Launch Sawafi Arabic Language Search Engine

[mandy]

Estimates are that Arabic Language advertising could grow to $150 million from the present $10 million, and Internet users could jump to 43 million from 16 million in 2004

A Saudi-German plan to launch a dedicated Arabic language search engine for the Web could revolutionize the moribund Arabic Internet market, a senior official in the project said.

"Sawafi", planned for the last quarter of 2006, could also set a tough challenge for international search giants such as Google, MSN and Yahoo, which offer a basic Arabic search facility at present.

"There is no (full) Arabic Internet search engine on the market. You find so-called search engines, but they involve a directory search, not a local search. There's nothing available for overall Internet search,"...