Microsoft launches four new Arabized solutions for Gitex

The company today announced four new Arabized solutions - Infopath 2003, Windows CE 5.0, Microsoft Business Solutions CRM and Class Server 3.0 - that bring the power of Microsoft technology to businesses, mobile users and the education sector. The products are on show at the Microsoft stand (C9-1, Sheikh Rashid Hall) along with other Arabized solutions.

"Microsoft is committed to releasing Arabic-enabled solutions and to continuously improving the functionality of our products to meet the needs of the Arabic-speaking community," said Assem Hijazi, Localization Program Manager, Microsoft Middle East. "We have been producing Arabic solutions for over twelve years, and along with our software developer partners, there are now Arabic solutions that run on Microsoft platforms to cater for all sorts of users, to help increase productivity, improve learning and help the Arab world to realize its potential."

Infopath 2003 is part of the Office 2003 suite, which allows organizations to create electronic forms, to share, transmit and store data much more efficiently than with paper forms. With the launch of Arabic support for Infopath, organizations can now design forms that recognize Arabic language input, and share those forms between workgroups, customers and partners.

Microsoft Business Solutions CRM is a powerful customer relationship management application that is designed specifically for small to medium businesses. Demand for CRM solutions is growing rapidly among this segment in the Middle East, and by offering a fully Arabic-enabled solution from CRM version 1.2, Microsoft is giving sales and customer services businesses in the region even more powerful tools to manage and support their customers in their native language.

With the latest version of Windows CE, version 5.0, Microsoft is providing device manufacturers with the capability to use Arabic language on devices such as Pocket PCs, Smartphones and Portable Media Center. Windows CE 5.0 is a development platform for hardware manufacturers, which provides the operating system components to power a wide range of devices. Windows CE 5.0 now includes support for complex scripts, bringing true Arabic-enablement to Microsoft powered mobile devices for the first time.

The education sector will also be able to benefit from newly Arabized solutions, with the launch of Class Server 3.0. Class Server is powerful, Web-enabled software for schools that allows them to organize and manage teaching materials, develop curriculum and testing standards and enable students to submit homework from home via the web. The latest version features complete Arabic support, allowing schools to create content and communicate in the language of their choosing.

"Arabic is a tier one language for many Microsoft products, which means that our key products such as Windows XP are available in Arabic as soon as they are launched. Alongside of that, our Arabization teams in the US and in the Middle East are constantly responding to customer requirements by working to Arabic-enable the solutions that our customers tell us they need," said Hijazi.