Symbian plans to beta test POSIX libraries for its Symbian OS this quarter. The PIPS (PIPS is POSIX on Symbian) libraries provide C and C++ APIs (application programming interfaces) in standard “libc,” “libm,” “lipthread,” and “libdl” libraries, with the aim of helping programmers migrate existing middleware and applications to Symbian.

The PIPS libraries were announced Jan. 16 in Beijing, where Symbian opened an office.

Symbian says PIPS will significantly reduce the work of migrating existing desktop and server components to Symbian OS. Typical applications might include web servers and file sharing software, the company says. For instance, mobile phone marketshare leader Nokia, which licenses Symbian for its smartphones, ported Apache to Symbian last summer.

Symbian executive VP Jorgen Behrens stated, “It is now realistic and desirable to migrate desktop and server code onto mobile devices.”

Symbian claims that there are about 100 million Symbian-based smartphones in the market, making it the top smartphone OS. However, Symbian's fortunes may be falling, according to research reports last year from ARCchart, ABI, and The Diffusion Group.

Availability

A beta version of PIPS will be available for Symbian OS v9.1 (and above) as a downloadable .SIS file from the Symbian Developer Network by the end of Q1 2007, Symbian says.

 
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