A group of tech heavyweights, including Microsoft Corp., Dell Inc., and Intel Corp., said Thursday it has submitted to a standards body a specification for managing different hardware and operating systems across a network.

The Web Services for Management protocol was submitted to the Distributed Management Task Force Inc. for further refinement and finalization as a standard, Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Windows Server Division at Microsoft, said during his keynote speech at the company's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.

WS-Management is a specification for a protocol for managing computer servers, devices and applications. The spec, published in March by Microsoft, Dell, Intel and others, is based on Web services, a set of standard integration technology for tying computer systems over the Internet.

Another significant management specification under development is Web Services Distributed Management, which is under development by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, an international standards body.

WSDM, however, does not compete because it's primarily used in managing applications that communicate using web services-based interfaces, Ronald Schmelzer, analyst for market researcher ZapThink LLC, said.

Together, the specifications could simplify management of software, computer systems and devices within a service-oriented architecture, an evolution in distributed computing based on web services standards.

"Having two languages is better than having 500," Schmelzer said of WS-M and WSDM.

Microsoft plans to support WS-M in Windows Server 2003 R2 Beta 1 and in the next release of its systems management software Microsoft Operations Manager. Chipmaker Intel plans to implement the spec within its processors in 2006 as part of the company's Active Management Technology.

Computer Associates International Inc., which is also working on WS-M, plans to include it in the company's Unicenter desktop management software, and Sun Microsystems Inc. says the protocol will be implemented in its Sun Fire x64 systems, the Solaris 10 operating system and N1 systems management products.

Besides the companies mentioned above, others involved in the development of WS-M include Advanced Micro Devices Inc., BMC Software Inc., Fujitsu-Siemens Computers, NEC Corp., Novell Inc., Symantec Corp. and WBEM Solutions Inc.