First true Arabic search engine on the world wide web

CHELMSFORD - May 5, 1997 - Engineering Graphical Solutions (EGS) announced the launch of www.ayna.com, the first Arabic search engine and resource on the world wide web dedicated to the global Arabic community.

The Internet community is in need of a resource dedicated exclusively to the Arabic literate audience. Currently the world wide web is deficient in this aspect. Most of the information is available in non-Arabic languages due to the unavailability of a standard character set worldwide. We have assembled this site to provide links to the global Arabic community using their native language. We have chosen Microsoft's character set (CP-1256) to present the information in our web site, and have plans to furnish, in the near future, the same information in the International Standard Organization's character set (ISO-8859-6).

The world wide web site www.ayna.com, features an Arabic-based search engine, which allows users using any version of Windows, an operating system by Microsoft, to access the site and search for Internet resources. The site displays its information in Arabic Windows native code page (CP1256). The site can be explored using readily available, both free and commercial, web browsers such as Sinbad (Sakhr), Internet Explorer (Microsoft), Netscape Communicator (Netscape), Accent multilingual mosaic (Accent), and Tango (Alis technologies).

The site also provides a keyboard mapper which translates the Latin character set to Windows Arabic character set. This allows users using any browser capable of viewing the Windows character set, to fully exploit the resources available by submitting searches using their existing keyboards.

Our vision for Ayna? is to make the Arabic resources available to all the Arabic community worldwide, by continuously improving and expanding our site to support current and future information technology trends.

Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Netscape Navigator, Netscape Communicator are trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation. Sinbad is copyrighted by Sakhr Software, part of the alAlamiah group. Accent multilingual mosaic is copyrighted by Accent Software International. Tango is a trademark of Alis Technologies.

© 1997 Engineering Graphical Solutions. All rights reserved.