Ten major IT vendors including Microsoft and IBM on Monday released a draft of a new specification, <A HREF="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=23477">the service modeling language,</A> which they claim will make it easier for customers to manage their heterogenous systems. SML provides a consistent way to describe system information about computer networks, applications, servers and other IT resources including services in XML, according to Kirill Tatarinov, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Windows enterprise management division. Joining Microsoft and IBM in work on the draft are BEA Systems, BMC Software, Cisco Systems, Dell, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Sun Microsystems. Missing from that list of supporters are players including CA, Oracle and Advanced Micro Devices.