Oh, great, another Object 279! Really? Don't get me wrong, I think it's great to have a plastic kit of this beast. But two? If it has to be Cold War armour (which is laudable), couldn't one of them do a M103 instead?
Oh, well, at least it's not the umpteenth grey thing with iron crosses! 
It is interesting how one company will announce a new kit and soon afterwards, one or two others will announce the same kit. Now, unless they're sharing information, I wonder what are the processes which lead them to all decide to do the same model of the same vehicle, simultaneously?
I think that's what annoys and humors me about the announcement of two or more kits of the same obscure subject at close to the same time. Admittedly, some times one kit will be arguably better than the other in some fashion but I can't help feel that there's an unnecessary duplication of effort. It reminds of that early German heavy tank discussed at the beginning of this thread. Including the one from Amusing Hobby, there were something like five or six kits produced by three different manufacturers in a fairly short period of time. And IIRC, (I'm no authority on WW2 German armor) there were only like three to five vehicles actually constructed. But hey, maybe I'm just grumpy because there aren't umpteenth choices in kits of the various US T20-T23 tanks and the T14. Not to mention vehicles that actually saw service like the Soviet T44 and T54 or, as ChernayaAkula mentioned, the US M103. Heck, for the M103, I even know where to find one just down the road a bit from me, in case anyone needs a vehicle to research.
As for why you have two or more kits of the same subject announced at around the same time, I suspect that while some of it might be strange coincidence, most of it is the result of some degree of reliable inter-industry rumor mongering.
