Aftek Infosys and Mitco Group launch an Arabic search engine

India-based Aftek Infosys’s German subsidiary, Seekport, is collaborating with Saudi Arabia’s Mitco Group to launch an Arabic Internet search engine called ‘Sawafi’. This search engine, whose final release is scheduled for the last quarter of 2006, will enliven the flagging Arabic market, and also prove to be strong competition for global giants like Google, MSN and Yahoo, which currently offer basic Arabic search capability.

Ranjit Dhuru, Chairman and Managing Director, Aftek Infosys, says that while Seekport and Mitco would each have a 45 per cent stake in the venture, the employees would control the remaining 10 per cent. The Mitco Group would be investing USD six million into the joint venture, called Seekport Internet Technologies Arabia FZ-LLC, which will be located in Dubai. Arexera, Aftek’s German partner will develop the search technology. Sawafi has been inspired by the success of an earlier Chinese language search engine, Baidu, which has around 100 million users.

Hermann Havermann, Managing Director, Seekport, mentions that Sawafi was developed in recognition of the need for a fully functional Arabic Internet search engine in the rapidly emerging market. The need was for an engine that went beyond mere directory searches. This undertaking will target the 280 million strong Middle East Arab population where present Internet penetration is low, and also Arabs in Europe and North America. Havermann adds that there are around 100 million Arabic web pages at present, which constitutes a miniscule 0.2 per cent of the total number of web pages worldwide. Internet research firm, Madar, says that 65 per cent of the Arab Internet users do not know English, the language in which almost 70 per cent of Internet content is. So far, there has been no motivation to add Arabic content to the Internet, as there was no systematic tool available to find that content, a drawback set to change with the launch of Sawafi.

Old news for Aftek Info Lovers , not any recommendation