IT WASN'T coincidence, the way three influential software companies--Microsoft Corp., SAP AG and Oracle Corp.--said basically the same thing in the last three weeks. I realized that not only were the three software companies racing against each other--they were racing against Internet time.

Let's do this chronologically.

First I listened to Henning Kagermann, cochair and CEO of German software company SAP AG, outline his company's Internet strategy via mySAP.com. One of the points he stressed was the use of HTML (hypertext markup language, the language by which web content can be viewed using a browser) and XML (a turbocharged version of HTML) to bring data to individual users' desktops via SAP's Workplace solution.

''Zee Internet vill enable individual employees to access zee various services and procezeez they need to perform on a daily baziz,'' Kagermann said in a thick German accent.

Second, there was Microsoft, whose Gio Bacareza explained how a person's everyday work concerns--e-mail, stock quotes, weather, news and what have you--can be placed on his or her desktop via an HTML page which acts as an interface to MS Office 2000 and to the Internet. Microsoft--not one to be late in assigning fancy terms to already existing technology or concepts (remember the Digital Nervous System?)--calls this the Digital Dashboard. In Las Vegas, Microsoft chair Bill Gates showed off a prototype of the MSN-based Web Companion, a low-cost wireless device with a keyboard that runs Windows CE. Its goal is also to access the data you need from anywhere using a browser (in this case, Internet Explorer is naturally the default browser). At the Comdex keynote in Vegas, Gates stressed the role of Microsoft in personalized Internet computing, that is, after Ricky Martin wiggled his butt at Mandalay Bay and Lennox Lewis whipped Evander Holyfield's butt at Caesar's Palace.

And, just last week, Oracle Corp. sang the same tune at Oracle Open World 1999 in Los Angeles. Again--using Java, HTML and XML--Oracle promised the delivery of ''portals-to-go,'' wherein data can be delivered not only via browsers in individual PCs but also to cell phones and personal digital assistants. Using Oracle's WebDB, one can create ''portlets'' (not to be confused with portalets) or small portals based on industry-standard APIs (application programming interfaces) so that components can be reused to create personalized portals.

So these three companies are singing the same tune, and I can name that tune in one note. It's called ''I Have a Solution and It's In Your Face Because of a Browser.'' Back when Netscape still refused to become Explorer fodder, the so-called browser war led everyone to think that browsers were the end-all and be-all of the Internet. But when Microsoft squeezed the life out of everybody by offering Explorer for free, the browser suddenly became a commodity, giving the IT industry the chance to focus on what really mattered: Internet services. Now, the browser is being viewed the way it should be: As an interface to the web from where people can get their data and services.

Microsoft's strategy toward this trend is predictable--build an HTML page from which you can access data based on applications people all over the world use anyway--Office applications. Microsoft's Digital Dashboard basically interfaces with Office 2000 apps, making it a local webpage that would sit on top of existing MS apps. From there, you can get services locally or through your company's intranet.

SAP and Oracle, more known in the back-end, are making a charge toward bringing the data they process in the background to be manifested at the user level also via an HTML interface--the browser. SAP is doing this through the Workplace, an integral part of the mySAP.com strategy that allows users--through a browser--to customize the services they need from SAP's R3 engine. Oracle is doing its version of the same strategy using Oracle8i Lite, the stripped-down Internet version of the company's database product. Oracle wants people to be able to access data (stashed in an Oracle database, of course) from Internet appliances via ''web-to-go'' apps.

If you notice, these three companies--along with almost every software company in the world--are coming up with their own implementations of having data delivered to mobile users using HTML and the Internet. That's why I said at the start of this column that the events, which took place in the last three weeks, are not coincidental. They are all raising against each other and against Internet time.

More than that, perhaps these events mean that no IT company is taking a chance at not betting on apps and services delivered via the Internet (remember Gates' immortal ''The Internet is just a fad'' quip?). It's no longer just a matter of setting up a corporate website or establishing an Internet version of your services. It's now a race to offer your services via the browser.

I was also surprised when, at Oracle Open World, Oracle Corp. senior vice president Mark Jarvis declared that client-server is a thing of the past. Instead of having many clients access the same data from a server, you can now store the same data in multiple servers and let that be accessed by a multitude of users via the Internet.

It seemed like yesterday when Oracle and the rest of the world were hailing client-server as the ultimate computing solution. As a matter of fact, two years ago at Oracle Open World 1997--also held in Los Angeles--Oracle chair Larry Ellison was hailing his company's network computing solution based on the client-server model as the future of computing and a signal to the end of Microsoft's (monopoly) dominance in the standalone PC arena. Microsoft, however, countered that Oracle's network computer dream was (naive) overly optimistic. At least now, most of them agree that using HTML (via a local webpage as in the case of the Digital Dashboard or via a browser accessing data from a database engine) to get the data you want onto your desktop is the way to go. Microsoft tried a prototype of this idea--although limited to Internet content--through the ill-fated Active Desktop.