The .pib file can be opened with winrar and there will be 4-6 files within named contacts/appointments etc. You are supposed to be able to open them with excel, but whenever I try I just get gibberish. I have also tried not using the binary backup and still get the same thing.
per
www.dotfred.net
"There are two kinds of backups. The binary based backup has been implemented in order to have a backup/restore process which is fast and more reliable, the disadvantage being that the backup contents cannot be easily modified or viewed.
The text based backup has been implemented in order to see/edit the contents on a pc for instance."
"There is only one file type now, which is .pib (Personal Information Backup), in fact it is just a zip file (so you can open it with a zip application) which contain the different text files used in PPCBckpContacts, so you can still extract these files, edit them on a pc using Excel or Notepad and eventually restore them without putting them back in the .pib file."