As devices and applications become more ubiquitous in less developed countries, their content will grow and an embryonic e-economy should flourish, they said.
"(Microsoft CEO) Steve Ballmer and I a few years ago talked and believed Arabic would be an increasingly important language," said Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer. "And yet, because of the way the internet was evolving, it wasn't a language that was getting a lot of use."
But while Arab world internet use since 2000 has grown faster than anywhere else and access costs have shrunk, content still punches below its weight and ad spending remains tiny.
Arabic content is less than 1 percent of world totals though speakers constituting 5 percent of the global population.
The Arabic portal of online encyclopedia Wikipedia carries less words than its Catalan site, Google's regional marketing manager Wael Ghonim said.
"There is a lot of Arabic content but it is not well structured," he said. "We want more structured content. We want more of the professional, niche sites, more businesses."
"One of our biggest missions is to enable Arabic users to find the right tools to enrich Arabic content," Ghonim said. "It would be great to see more e-commerce in the region, more publishers, more news sites. We are committed to help them."
Asked how Google could aid such regional growth, Ghonim said: "We have a very ambitious plan in the next few months, we are working on many initiatives." He did not elaborate. Continue: http://asurl.net/9v8
