Now don’t get me wrong. I like Microsoft and they can come up with some really good technology. But you just have to wonder about their marketing department sometimes.

Their latest Arabic effort, Maren, is arguably a nice tool (albeit not an original idea) that intelligently converts transliterated Arabic typed on an English keyboard into real Arabic on the fly.

Then MS marketing gets hold of it and adds an introductory video that is, frankly, insulting. It starts with an inexplicable sequence of a person who cannot read chatting online with some one who cannot type. The video goes on to recommend forgetting Arabic keyboards and using Maren English for everything - Email, Word, IM. And in a really patronising way - as if to say “You poor Arabs, stop worrying about your really difficult language and use English instead”. Given that Arabs are generally touchy about the subject of American abuses to a few of their countries, one of their religions and culture in general, Microsoft marketing are simply fanning flames and the negative feedback starts flooding in. Here is one blogger:

Promoting Maren was not in the right way. I’m blogging in English and I chat with some friends in Franco-Arab way but I really care about Arabic Content and promoting the proper content to users, But Maren Video Demonstration didn’t show that It’s helping users to use Arabic Letters or Franco-Arab but It just says Screw Arabic letters .. Write in Roman Characters and we will convert to Arabic .

And a Twitter thread:

@Lastoadri: @Zeinobia well.. we shld preserve our language & force ourselves to write in Arabic letters. we can use yamli, t3reeb.. etc for quick things (13:45)

@Lastoadri: Maren is like forcing Arabs to type Arabic in latin letters. In few yrs we will have the new Turkish.. the video is so disrespectful. (13:44)

@Zeinobia: @Lastoadri why ?? I think it is good for those who do not understand Arabic English typing thing (13:27)

@Lastoadri: I feel the new Microsoft Maren program is like an insult for Arabs http://www.microsoft.com/middleeast/egypt/cmic/maren/ (13:23)

@afahad: after seeing Maren I am convinced us arabs must be the laziest nation in the world! If you do most of your typing in arabic, learn how to! (13:06)

I can only guess that the MS marketing team in Cairo were the same people who thought up Bob. I just hope they learn from mistakes.