IBM and Sun, like ODF drug dealers trying to poison Microsoft Office, have launched the OpenDocument Format Toolkit Union, a new open source software community project to spread the toxin to business, the main Office constituency and source of mucho bucks for Microsoft.

Sun is kicking in an API for reading, writing and manipulating ODF documents and code to accelerate more application development, eyeing content management, business workflows and activities and web-based document solutions.

Its initial contribution is a so-called ODF Validator tool that validates ODF files and checks certain conformance criteria.

The ODF Toolkit is supposed to "break down barriers between people and their data by providing support for a wide range of new applications."

It's said to complement the ODF standardization work done at the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS).

According to Michael Bemmer, Sun's senior director of collaboration engineering, "It is no longer an acceptable business practice to have silos of office document data stored in proprietary formats. The industry has moved forward and is replacing the silos with business content, such as on-premise business applications, software solutions offered over the Internet and applications supported by mobile devices that are critical in Service Oriented Architectures."

Bob Picciano, general manager of Lotus, envisions "each document literally taking on a life of its own, conveying the actionable insight and business value intended by its creators, rather than the static ledger we have been forced to accept - until now."

Developers using the ODF Toolkit are supposed to be able to produce new applications that automatically create reports in response to database queries; index or scan documents to support search services; scan documents to support anti-virus services; scan documents for regulatory compliance, legal or forensic purposes; convert from one editable format to another; render documents via other modalities such as audio and video as in unified communications; import data from an Office document into a non-Office application; and render and import documents for mobile device display and editing constraints.

See http://odftoolkit.org.