When it comes to IT vendors' rhetoric, strategies and offerings, if you think you've heard it before, you probably have. Marketing IT, much like marketing fashion, appears to be a cyclical game, writes Thomas Wailgum in a post at CIO magazine.

An announcement out of SAP last week illustrates the point. In championing some new real-time analytics products, SAP is touting their need for relatively little customization and their best-of-breed status. Wailgum notes that "best-of-breed" marketing was hot in the 1980s but faded in the 1990s when vendors encouraged companies to deploy a single instance of an integrated software package.

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) also seems to be looking back in its effort to build itself into "a monolithic tech conglomerate that provides complete systems for its customers," Wailgum writes. "I like to imagine Larry wearing the IBM uniform of the 1960s: Dark suit, white shirt, thin black tie and thick-rimmed glasses."

For more, see:
-Thomas Wailgum's post at CIO

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