Consumers have waited what feels like years for Bing Travel metasearch to make its way across the Atlantic Ocean to sit within European versions of its search engine.
So rather confusing and subsequently conflicting news emerging about the fate of the engine outside of the US, and when it will actually launch, if at all.
Microsoftsupposedly said last week [reg required] that travel search tools will launch on Bing in months, rather than years.
The last official response to queries about a possible launch date was in November 2009, when Microsoft said metasearch would certainly not appear by the end of year, as had previously been suggested.
So last week's news was, well, good news.
The original idea was to adapt the Farecast system (which Microsoft acquired and used to launch Bing Travel in June-2009 in the US) for European markets.
But this strategy appears have fallen by the wayside, with talk now of Microsoft doing a similar deal rather than re-engineer Farecast for overseas markets.
But perhaps things are even less clear than indicated last week, as revealed when checking out various elements of the other reports.
Officially the company actually prefers to say nothing about such timetables and the overseas strategy around Bing Travel, including if it would attempt to buy or partner with an existing metasearch engine - a detail likely to send some engines enthusiastically calling their financial advisors.
But privately the idea that something could launch within months is being heavily played down - in fact, there are still question marks over whether such functionality is coming at all.
Such a move, of course, could be triggered by the outcome of events outside of Bing's control - yes, the Google-ITA Software story.