Symbian developers offered Windows Phone migration tools

Windows Phone guide and API mapping tool help Symbian developers make the switch

Microsoft and Nokia have announced a package of tools to help Symbian developers make the switch to Windows Phone 7, ahead of the release of Nokia's first handsets based on the Microsoft platform.

The package comprises online tools and documentation to help Nokia developers create apps for Windows Phone using the skills they already know, while they get up to speed with the new APIs.

As detailed on Microsoft's Windows Phone Developer blog, the documentation chiefly consists of a white paper, Windows Phone Guide for Symbian Qt Application Developers, while the Symbian Qt application framework has now been added to the Windows Phone API mapping tool.

The latter is described by Microsoft as a translation dictionary allowing developers to see which API calls in Windows Phone 7 are equivalent to those of the platform with which they are already familiar. The Windows Phone API mapping tool already supports iPhone and Android developers.

Meanwhile, the Windows Phone Guide for Symbian Qt Application Developers is about 100 pages long and includes porting tutorials with practical examples and tips on how to port applications.

Microsoft also announced the Nokia Windows Phone Training roadshow, a series of one-day developer events around Europe, coming to London on 10 October.

The move comes despite Nokia's repeated public statements that it has no intention of phasing out Symbian anytime soon.

Earlier this month Nokia even announced plans to launch a number of enterprise applications on the Symbian Belle platform, as well as three smartphones based on the OS.