Arabic solutions will prove big draw at GITEX 2004

More than 60 percent of GITEX exhibitors will offer Arabic solutions in some shape or form, industry sources said. From multinational Tier 1 companies including Acer, HP, Microsoft and Adobe to the strong regional developers such as Saudi Arabia's Sakhr Software, a wide variety of Arabic providers will be represented at the largest IT event in the Middle East.

While the actual development hubs for the Arabic computer solutions industry are in the region - Lebanon and Saudi Arabia in particular, with Dubai quickly catching up - the market for these hardware and software products includes all corners of the world and every field of application from business to government security to personal computing.

The Arabic solutions market comprises two distinct parts: international software like Microsoft Office customised for this regional market through Arabic features, and original solutions purpose-built by companies in the region. Both efforts involve substantial undertaking on the part of the developers, but are a strategic long-term investment in the fast growing Middle East IT sector.

"Every single software company is either working on Arabic solutions or has it already," said Joe Karkour, Area Manager of Layout Middle East. The company is Middle East distributor of Quark Xpress and Arabic XT, along with Kalimat X and other desktop publishing software, and has participated in GITEX since 1992.

"Since our first participation at GITEX, we have seen the market for Arabic solutions increase exponentially," he said. "A lot of efforts are being made by international providers in localising products, but the more encouraging development is that the number of regional companies specialising in this area has quadrupled within that time frame."

In the early 1990s, he added, Layout Middle East was one of two or three Arabic solutions providers - these days companies have evolved to provide Arabic solutions in fields as diverse as Client Relationship Management Solutions, Desktop Publishing, Human Resources, Accounting and Database Management Systems.

Even within the region, there are differences in the extent of Arabic solutions needed. In Saudi Arabia, for example, the predominance of the language means that everything from CD-ROM cookbooks and encyclopedias to government interfaces are created in Arabic. Conversely, in a multi-lingual city like Dubai, more high-end solutions will be on offer at GITEX.

Layout Middle East, for example, will be offering ArabicXT 6 - an extension to Quark XPress - and a new version of its popular KalimatX for the Mac OS X platforms at GITEX 2004. Both programs offer a powerful suite of features for layout and design in Arabic and English, with rich typography, Web page creation, colour management and pre-press solutions. The award-winning KalimatX in
particular has become one of the best-selling applications in the Middle East, netting close to 40,000 users in the region.

"Kalimat is a good example of what Arabic solutions can do," Karkour said. "It's a very much needed system utility, allowing designers to write Arabic text in almost any Macintosh application from Freehand to Macromedia Director and Flash."

"When you create an Arabic extension, it's not just a matter of translating the menus and user interface, you have to enable the software to allow for writing from right to left and to Arabize the whole system," he added.

Also on the consumer end, visitors to GITEX and Computer Shopper will also find Arabic solutions in the mobile and handheld applications category. Harf Information Technology, for example, will offer the service of prayer times, Qibla direction and Hijri calendar for Nokia mobile phones, a Holy Qur'an digital book for handheld devices, and other applications for Thuraya phones and Palm devices.

The exhibitors to look out for in the category include Tejari, Hyperlink at the Oracle World, ACCPAC Middle East, SAP Arabia, Farabi Technology Middle East and many more at Gitex.