• by Mark Walsh , June 30, 2010

Yahoo Wednesday said it had partnered with IBM to provide customer service for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa in nine languages: Arabic, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Turkish, Polish, Romanian, and Russian.

IBM will provide customer support on behalf of Yahoo from its service delivery center in Cairo, Egypt. The step follows Yahoo's acquisition of Arabic Web portal Maktoob last August to gain a bigger online presence in the region. During Yahoo's first-quarter conference call, Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse mentioned that Maktoob had "performed in line with plan" without providing further detail.

At the time, Yahoo planned to introduce Arabic versions of the home page, mail, messenger and search before moving on to local versions of other core properties like news, sports, and finance. Yahoo on Wednesday said the localized customer service effort would also support future Arabic-language versions of future Yahoo products.

"Yahoo has made a strong commitment to growth in the Middle East, and our new support for Arabic-speaking users around the world is a significant milestone toward our goals for the region," said Jeff Russakow, executive vice president of customer advocacy for Yahoo, in a statement.

Ross Sandler, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said the deal with IBM to handle customer support is likely part of CEO Carol Bartz's ongoing efforts to reduce costs and consolidate operations. Yahoo did not indicate whether it was shutting any existing customer service operations as a result of outsourcing some of those functions to IBM.

Yahoo plans to provide initial support for Arabic, French, German, Italian, and Spanish before expanding to Turkish, Polish, Romanian, and Russian through the recruitment of a "significant number" of multilingual Egyptian service professionals.