Microsoft Corp. announced the promotion of Ali Faramawy to Corporate Vice President Microsoft Corporation and President – Microsoft Middle East & Africa. The promotion recognizes Faramawy’s strong leadership and his contributions to helping “to fuel growth across the region. ” It also underlines the growing role of MEA (Arab world) as an area contributing to the overall success of Microsoft.

As corporate vice president, Ali Faramawy will continue to be responsible for Microsoft’s operations in the Middle East & Africa (MEA) area. MEA is one of thirteen areas that comprise Microsoft’s worldwide operations. Microsoft said that “the area represents one of Microsoft’s fastest growing and most dynamic markets – and certainly its most diverse.” Microsoft MEA is comprised of 32 offices representing 79 countries across three continents. Faramawy has led the region for seven years .Ali Faramawy’s previous title was Vice President Microsoft International and President – Microsoft Middle East & Africa.
Throughout his twenty years career in the IT industry, Ali held different Technical, Sales and Managerial roles in different parts of the Middle East and in Europe with companies like Dun & Bradstreet Software, NCR Corporation, Yokogawa Marex and finally Microsoft Corporation.

Ali joined Microsoft in October 1997 as the General Manager of Microsoft Egypt. After a successful four year spell in that role, he moved on to assume additional responsibilities for the area of Eastern Mediterranean, which encompassed Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus & Malta.

In May 2002, Ali moved to take on the newly established position of Regional Director – in charge of Sales, Marketing & Services for the Middle East and Africa Region.

Ali graduated from the Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, majoring in Computer Science & Automatic Control and has an MBA in Strategic Marketing from the University of Hull in the UK. He is married and has two sons.

National Security counsel of the united state of America is part of the whitehouse and is used as a forum for US national security and foreign policy issues. Its members include top US executives such as the President and US army chief.

Pradeep Ramamurthy is Senior Director for Global Engagement at the National Security Council and is in charge of Obam’s entrepreneurship plans for the Muslim world.

Around 2 weeks ago, we asked US embassy council if we can have an interview with Pradeep via email but he replied back that Pradeep has refused. we asked why? he told us he thinks it would not be productive?

Why it would not be productive? This is not the right answer to send to the media. Does “not productive” means he thinks that our questions might be hard for him to answer and that ArabCrunch will not be a propaganda platform for his policies?

We do not know, but Pradeep past job is with the US intelligence community as being a senior FBI aid. We wonder why someone with FBI background is handling entrepreneurship with relevance to the Muslim world? is it to make sure that Arab and Muslim entrepreneurs are not terrorist? are 1,5 billion Muslim doomed as terrorists and have to prove they are not by joining the US government? and kiss hands?

Does Pradeep’s “no productive” means that final decision to destroy ArabCrunch -and its founder as our U.S Department of defense and State Department sources have informed us, -is made and final at the highest executives authorities in the Obama’s administrations.

Is the US government retaliation a is imminent and fabricated pretexts to take us down can not rolled back?

knowing that we tweeted at the time of that we advice those who plot against AC to stop their plots before it is too late. ” we did not mean anyone in specific”

#image via.

“Exposing War Crimes is not a Crime.” this is the slogan of Supporters of US intelligence soldier Bradly manning, they have started since few weeks online and offline campaign to free the suspected Wikileaks whistle-blower.

Bradly is a suspect of leaking massive amount of Inelegance cash about the war in Iraq and US embassy communications in Middle East, that if exposed would shed the light on many secrets and CIA operations in the region.

Yesterday facebook has frozen Bradly Managing facebook supporters page facebook.com/savebradley has been and the admin could not login to update it and post information or links on the page.

The network of supporters emailed facebook but noreply, but after Wikileaks Tweet about the matter and BradllyManaging supporters post along with other supporters efforts the page is unfrozen.

One of the videos Bradly Managing leaked was this one where it shows US army helicopter kills innocent journalist in Baghdad :




Brady has been held in custody since few monthes and is facing criminal charges for leaking secret dumps.
US Congressman Mike Rogers asked for his execution. However Bradly is lucky of being US citizen, if he was a citizen of certain Arab countries, he would face cooked up crimes he did not commit.

At ArabCrunch we feel worried that CIA/ Mossad and other intelligence agency access to our email might lead to expose  our sources with relevance to US department of Defense and the State department. We feel worried about the fate of AC’s founder Gaith Saqer that might put our sources in grave danger.

After we posted about Hillary Clinton’s and the U.S Department of State plans to enter into competition with ArabCrunch with a new project under the U.S department website. As part of the US government engagement plans for entrepreneurship in the Muslim world ,  as a new pillar to fight “extremism” or “terrorism” as the U.S administration says.

A lot of people misunderstood the issue as ArabCrunch is against competition.  The conversation about the issue dragged by some people  ”intentionally or unintentionally” away from the main points .

We are not against competition, in fact we already have competitors in different fronts and many of them are our friends, and many of us supported each other in different ways, competition is healthy and helps everyone innovate. History also has examples that even giants at the size of Google fail to compete with solid startup such Youtube.

But Google is not the U.S federal government. What we are against is unfair competition, the point about US Department of State entering in competition against ArabCrunch is that it is not just against free market principles, as our sources who are close to the US Department of Defense and the US State Department has informed us that if we do not join the US government effort, they will destroy “you.”

We already said “NO” to Greg Behrman Member of US State Department Policy Planning Staff about his “Collaborating” idea, as the term sounds like become “our spy.” And personally I hate that type of “business” “whether it is Evil “business” or whether “it is ethical and its ends and means are justified “. However, Craig might not “necessarily” mean “become our spy.”

To those who do not know,  The Washington Post recently published a web report about the size of the Intelligence community in USA alone, it includes about 1 million people and thousands of locations and companies that are used as a “cover” for secret operations.

Out side USA, the CIA reach is even bigger, they are “almost” in every country and the nature of their job is covered. Meaning they do not have the CIA banner on their T-shirts. You can use google for more info.

We are not here commenting whether the large size of the US intelligence community is justified or not, or whether all its operations are ethical or not, we are here just stating facts.

Some people have told us that there are many ways the CIA “might” hurt the writer of this blog post and ArabCrunch, “for example”, a small DDoS attack to divert attention from something else. US government pressure on certain other governments that would make life harder for us as another “example.” – PS: “example” does not necessarily means it really happened.”

That is why I talked about unfair competition and being “concerned”, their resources and reach is beyond mine or that of ArabCrunch at any standard. Even if the U.S Federal government resources put into this are not “massive.”

This is not a nationalistic feeling, it is not Arabs against America or Americans, or East VS. West, No. It is true that I am not American but a Jordanian citizen, even if I was an American citizen it would not be fare at any measure.

This is about  injustice and liberty.

At ArabCrunch we do not consider Americans as enemies at all, we do not consider any nation as enemy, we do not have this nonsense views. In fact we plan to increase our coverage of International & U.S startups, and more startup events not justs in the Arab world but also in USA and Europe to help drive innovation and create jobs. Again we have no political agendas at ArabCrunch or political opinions.

We are NOT anti-american as a certain “person” accused me wrongly before, at ArabCrunch and me have many American friends, and many of them have helped us in different ways. We admire innovative companies  in USA such as Google, Twitter, Gowalla and Facebook ( but not all Facebook practices) and we admire the entrepreneurship drive and culture in Silicon Valley.

I am not afraid as I wrongly stated, but “concerned”, again we have no plans in considering the US Federal government as an “enemy”, even  ”if” they do, or “if” “certain parties inside it do” or “is miss informed”. And I do believe that whats some people accuse some US federal government personnel of being “evil”  or “poppets to certain lobbies ”  is not necessarily true. I am sure many  people have good “intentions.”

But at least in technology, Hillary Clinton has proven before to be saying something and then doing something else. As with the case of China , Source Forge and around 120 million innocent people in South Korea, Cuba, Iran, Syria and Sudan who were banned from the freedom to code freely. And the US president Obama has wrongly before called social media as “a distraction”, even though it was one of the reasons behind the success of his presidential campaign. Social Media includes blogs personal, corporate or professional, such as ArabCrunch.

The Guardian reported that earlier this year, “Wikileaks published a US military document which disclosed a plan to “destroy the centre of gravity” of Wikileaks by attacking its trustworthiness.”

We said before there are plots from different directions against ArabCrunch, we are not at liberality “now ” in identifying more info.

At ArabCrunch we are not “yet” mainstream, but we are not “nothing” as certain “parties” suggested, the fact is we are growing day after day and moth over month, and we have been for a while and still the #1 tech, startups and social media blog from the Arab world, our worldwide ranking according to invesp is number 6 worldwide in innovation and e-commerce categories and 10th in startups. Our ranking is ahead of entrepreneurship blogs from icons such as Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Forbes. ( taking into account that investp does not measure our RSS subscribers from Feedoor which we still use for now and that our monthly visits is much much more than what invesp reports.)

Again, we do not have political comments so we are not commenting whether George Bush is a great man or not or if Obama is a great man or not, but Bush said once “with us or against us”, we are not commenting whether this saying was applied before or still applies to the current Obama’s administration’s policy. But does this saying apply to the technology industry and entrepreneurship in the Arab and Muslim world? and to ArabCrunch? Is the U.S government “engagement plans” will be “positive” to everyone?  Even to those who refuse to join? or criticize “wrongly or rightly” ? The near and mid term future has more answers!

Yesterday I received many calls asking me about our sources who are close to the U.S State Department and the U.S Department of Defense who have informed us that if you do not find ways to collaborate with the U.S State Department, they will destroy “you.”

I am not at libirty to provide “sources” of anything of relevance to anyone. and I hope the following comment at the previous post that sounded from someone from “certain secret intelligence community” has any implications to my  personal freedom and  safety:

“Well obviously I think there is always room for such articles in the tech world. Specially when it’s on “the right” side.
Thanks for the writer and the people who commented. As long as, this topic remains here in this page “only” its no big deal. We can move on, just knowing what we had to know.
Thanks for the update “

#Images by: merfam, Ben Fredericson and Marco Bellucci.

Around 10 days ago ArabCrunch  had a meeting with Barig Seraj the CEO of ICT Ventures a Saudi based Venture capital firm.

Barig Seraj informed us about his company and his recent investments, ICT Ventures is a growth based VC that focus in the IT sector. The VC firm made 3 investments so far. First in Mobidiv an Egyptian mobile app developer that is working on a special Chines SMS service, then they invested in ITs2 a digital security company in Saudi Arabia and lastly ICT Ventures closed  an investment round with IdealRatings a SaaS app providing Islamic Shariah screening, purification, and  fund management service for financial institutions that identifies and manages Shariah compliant instruments in the world. IdealRating is founded by Egyptian entrepreneur Youssri Helmy . The SaaS startup received 2 rounds of funding before from  Technology development fund in Egypt and then from Jordan based VC IV Holdings.

Here is the video interview with Barig, were he shed the light on his firm, the companies the invested in and how would they excite.

The Interview was done in Four Seasons hotel in Amman, Jordan. After the interview the hotel’s security came to question the writer of this post about using a camera ?!

Today Jordanian startup Aqar Estate a real estate web listing site has organized a party at Bristol hotel in Amman, Jordan where they showcased to the real estate and web industry their upcoming version of the site.

The new site which is set to be launched the 1st day of the Islamic Month of Ramadan -around 20th of this month- will have a complete revamp and new features, focusing on social interaction and making finding relevant real estate information easier to the user.

Among the new features, the site will offer premium membership for real estate agents and real estate developers. Thus the business model now is based on advertising revenues which is now expanded with new offerings such as featured site and will also depend on premium membership.

During the event ArabCrunch had an Interview with the company founder, she is Hanan Khader an ex-Jeeran and ex-maktoob employee, she is one of the few women entrepreneurs in the web Industry in the arab world, her 2,5 years old startup is totally bootstrapped and is already profitable which lead her to leave her job at Jeeran and even expand her team. Hanan is a mother to young girls and pregnant with a new baby. Other players in web real estate web business include AqarMap

Here our unedited interview today :




Update: end of the post.

Motorola has been a Mobile handset icon in the Arab world for a long time, but in the past few years the star has diminished to rivals such as Nokia and now iPhone and BlackBerry.

That case was not specific to the Arab world, its has been a problem that Motorola faced in its mother land: USA, but with the launching of its powerful Android based cell phone Droid and now Droid X, things have changed.

In the Arab world, Motorola is making a comeback its Droid or what they call MileStone outside USA is now launched in several Arab countries: GCC countries such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Jordan. The Milestone cost around $ 700 USD depending in the country and the data plan.

Around a month ago we interviewed Bashar Hafez Products Operation Manager Motorola where he also showcased MileStone the first Arabic Android phone. In the Video Basher shed the light on Motorola’s new strategy, the company is focusing on Mobile and home entertainment business as 3 days ago it sold its wireless network infrastructure assets for US $1.2 billion in cash to Nokia Siemens.

This is part one of Motorola Comeback series.

Here is the Video (note the Milstone in this video is not with the Arabic version of Android, we will post our own separate review for that later) :



Update 1: We have contacted HTC PR company in the region, we are being told that some HTC Android powered devices run certain level of arabization, we will keep you posted once we get full details from HTC’s PR company in the region.

Group-buying is one of the web’s fastest-growing retail platforms, and UAE based GoNabit is the first to bring it to the Arab world. CEO and Co-Founder Dan Stuart answered some questions we had about GoNabit and its quest to bring value to consumers and businesses in the Arab world.

[Rock Sfeir]: What is GoNabit and what value does it bring to consumers and businesses?

[Dan Stuart]: GoNabit is the first group buying website in the Middle East. We source deeply discounted deals from local businesses to be sold to subscribers online within a limited period of time. GoNabit uses the power of social commerce to offer businesses a risk-free customer-creation engine.

[Rock Sfeir]: Many entrepreneurial-minded individuals are currently working in the corporate world and are unsure of when to make the move to launch a start-up. You were a part of Bayt.com before launching GoNabit. When did you decide that the time was right to launch your own start-up?

[Dan Stuart]: I’ve been thinking about this for a long time…but especially in the last year or so. I had an understanding with Bayt.com CEO Rabea Ataya that he would look closely and possibly invest in anything that I felt strongly about launching. My job made it easier since I spent my days looking at new launch opportunities and evaluating investment proposals.

That said, it was my passion…being on the pulse of what was new and relevant to the region. The key was to have the experience in sales, marketing and product. Without these in your leadership team you are in for larger challenges and won’t have as clear insight into what you are conceptualizing.

Eventually, I made a fairly quick decision, and started working…I didn’t think too much. I knew I had the capital to launch it, and the follow-on investment was verbally committed. You really need to be ready for the insecurity and sleepless nights. If not, keep your job and your sanity…but accept that you will never shape your own thing, too.

[Rock Sfeir]: Are you pleased with the sales numbers you are seeing? What items are currently selling out quickly?

[Dan Stuart]: We’ve done over 1,400 transactions in 8 weeks. Greater than 95% of that is e-commerce, so I think that surprises a lot of people …except me. I knew the will and interest was there. There was/is simply very little to buy online in this part of the world due to the structural challenges of selling online here.

People really like lifestyle products like massages. We do like to mix in some really quirky things too. It’s our testing phase after all, so we need really give the market a chance to give us broad feedback…and we’re listening.

[Rock Sfeir]: What are your plans for regional and international expansion? What is the most difficult part about growing regionally?

[Dan Stuart]: Every city is a new country…so that is tough. If I was home in Canada I’d have 15 cities of serious size to expand that all have one language, currency, and legal structure.

Here it is expensive, time-consuming and inhibits scale.

This is one of the reasons that very few online companies in the region are of any real size. They need growth to scale…and growth requires crossing many significant barriers. You can go be 5th biggest in India and have an easier time than owning the Middle East, because you can grow more inexpensively. Europe has made growth far more open. North America is much easier. The Middle East doesn’t do themselves any favors. That said, our strategic investor Bayt.com has a network throughout the region that we are leveraging to grow quickly. If you don’t have that you’ll have a tough time keeping pace.

We’re also sniffing around outside the region.

[Rock Sfeir]: How do you convince businesses to sign on with GoNabit? Are some business owners hesitant to take an initial hit in their profits, even if it means getting new customers?

[Dan Stuart]: GoNabit provides businesses with a risk free customer-creation engine:

• No upfront cost – either financially, or in terms of time. Merchants only have to be prepared to offer a discount between 50-90% off their regular retail price,
• An advertising investment concentrated on actual customers (nabber community exists to buy deals and have chosen to receive them),
• Large reach into young savvy buyers (social, internet savvy professionals aged between 24 and 54 and weighted to females 60:40),
• Brand awareness – an exclusive spotlight on your business  combined with the buzz and power of social media,
• An additional shop window without the retail investment,
• Certainty of a clear and measurable return on investment, and
• Increased customer footfall – the opportunity to convert the one-off GoNabit voucher user into a loyal customer

It’s an education process for sure…and we’re doing it quite successfully. We can always get better. It’s only been 8 weeks after all.

[Rock Sfeir]: What forms of media are you utilizing to reach people? Do you feel that certain forms of media are more unique to the Middle-East than they might be elsewhere?

[Dan Stuart]: Social media is at the forefront for us. It is inherently a social undertaking where people buy online and share these experiences with friends offline. It makes sense to share since you do better if more people know. eBay and Souq work well when the auctions are not popularly known…so the price stays down. For us, buyers benefit by more people knowing.

We have also been strong in the media in terms of building awareness while educating the market. We haven’t really cracked the paid ads egg too much so far. We’ll see more of that as we grow and as we move in later phases of our awareness campaigns.

I think the Middle East is like most markets with little difference for our purposes. The scale is just smaller, but the sharing is no less personal and the measurement of marketing methods no less critical.

[Rock Sfeir]: What methods of payment do you accept?

[Dan Stuart]: We accept cash, cheque and paypal right now. We have 2-4 more payment methods under consideration, but not necessarily as additions, but some as replacements and localized solutions

[Rock Sfeir]: What would you have to say to Middle-Eastern consumers that are skeptical about online purchasing?

[Dan Stuart]: If you’re thinking about buying online then you are clearly not satisfied with the speed, access and choice available offline. E-commerce gives you this. If you participate in buying through proper online sites then you grow an industry, and that’s an industry that brings you economies of scale that pass on choice and cost benefits to you….you should want ecommerce to succeed.

Ultimately, look for sites with globally recognized security certifications, certified data usage policies, clear and obvious customer contact mechanisms….and try out those contact mechanisms. Send a test inquiry. If you don’t get an intelligent, timely and useful reply, then go elsewhere. You want to know that your question will get answered properly. You are paying for this contact and confidence so assign it value and feel confident in a site that provides it…and give them your business.

[Rock Sfeir]: As the Arab world gets more and more connected to the web, your target market keeps growing. But, what do you feel is the biggest challenge to the growth of GoNabit?

[Dan Stuart]: The biggest challenge is achieving scale despite trying to grow in a market that is fairly sluggish in terms of ecommerce. It’s sluggish because of the self-fulfilling prophecy in the region: people say that people don’t like buying online so many don’t because they hear that people don’t buy online in the region.

In fact, 10,000s buy through Aramex’s Shop and Ship each month…so that’s not true. We do 50-100 online transactions a day…making us one of the biggest ecommece sites in the region already.

I think the myth is hurting the region. The payment providers are generally poor and apathetic but that is changing with NBAD and Bank Audi. People will buy online if there is value for them, ease and confidence.

[Rock Sfeir]: Essentially, it seems that GoNabit is taking a proven concept and applying it to the usually under-served market in the Middle-East. Do you see forthcoming competition? Is it going to be a new start-up, or an established group-buying business operating internationally?

[Dan Stuart]: I think we’ll see both. We’ve led the market, done the education and proved the concept for the cities we are in. There will certainly be others to see that we have laid steps for them to follow in.

I think we’re bound to see an international player sniff around the region a