Yahoo's acquisition of Maktoob posed an interesting challenge to Google, whose approach has been slow and calculated. The truth of the matter is, there are millions of Arabic-speaking Internet users who are not interested in English-based content. So, Yahoo bought their way in.

Google appears to have gone their own way and decided to build their own base. The Egyptian Egabat (egabat.google.com) is the answer. As a product, it is completely uninteresting. It offers nothing that is new or exciting, except that it is an Arabic-only product. In fact, it's so Arabic it's Egyptian.

Now I understand that Google recruits a lot of their Middle East staff from Egypt, but the Egyptian branding of their first Arabic-only product is curious, to put it mildly. It is either Google doesn't understand the region or that their staff are taking this as an opportunity to highlight Egypt's importance in the region.

The Yahoo! acquisition of Maktoob.com has been hailed as a new dawn for the IT sector. A new dot-com boom set to explode in the Middle East! Some are even perplexed by the media's rather uncaring take on the deal (the amount of coverage received not as much as they would like to think). While it is always good to see money pumping in the Middle East for any sector, I just don't see everyone in the world coming down here and buying out companies.

Yahoo! has no interest in, perhaps, Maktoob's most innovative product, araby.com. The only thing that interested Yahoo! is the overwhelming number of eyeballs Maktoob managed to amass throughout the region. While it is a clever way to make yourself attractive for an acquisition, it isn't exactly the pinnacle of innovation.

So, let us please not go overboard with self-congratulations that is so typical of the region without actually looking at what is happening around us.