Bing, at one time the Internet's favorite punchline, no longer sounds like such a joke.

Six years after Microsoft launched Bing and lost billions of dollars in a long-shot attempt to take on Google, Microsoft appears to be nearing a significant milestone: the Bing search engine is no longer bleeding cash.

Rik van der Kooi, a VP at Microsoft handling advertiser and publisher solutions, teased the newfound viability of the Bing division during an interview with Marketing Land this week. “It’s a multibillion dollar business, and it does pay for itself right now,” he said.

That remark was enough for multiple publications to declare that Bing is now a "self-sustaining business." That may be broadly true, but Bing may not be profitable just yet.

"We’ve always said that our goal is for Bing to be profitable in FY16, and we remain on track to do so," a spokesperson for Microsoft said in a statement provided to Mashable. Microsoft's 2016 fiscal year begins on July 1. "We feel good about the run rate we’re on and remain confident in our goal."

See also: Google falls from grace

Microsoft should provide more clarity on Bing's financials with its next earnings release in July. Profitable or not, Bing is clearly moving in the right direction. The service's improved financial position, combined with recent strides in pushing its share of the search market to 20%, offer the clearest argument yet that Microsoft still has the power to muscle its way into lucrative and mature technology categories and find solid footing there.

"They can declare a little bit of success right now," says Collin Colburn, a marketing analyst with Forrester Research. "They’ve really come a long way when you think about it. The idea that they could be or are profitable, and are over 20% market share, that’s impressive."

It just took time. Lots of time. And tremendous resources.

Bing's painful start

By the time Bing launched in May, 2009, Google was already synonymous with online search and generating $5 billion-plus in revenue per quarter, netting more than a billion in profits.

Microsoft pitched Bing as a "decision engine" that would improve on existing search engines because it was "designed to empower people to gain insight and knowledge from the Web, moving more quickly to important decisions."

So, a tarted-up search engine.

Microsoft invested heavily in data centers, employees and marketing to build up Bing and establish it as a legitimate alternative to Google. One memorable campaign asked viewers to engage in a Pepsi Challenge-style challenge to see if they really prefer Google or Bing. Yet Bing's share of the search market was stuck somewhere between 10%-15%. When it gained percentage points, it tended to take away share from Yahoo rather than Google, the latter of which consistently maintained at least two-thirds of the search market.

Throughout 2009-2011, Microsoft's online services division, which houses Bing, was consistently losing hundreds of millions per quarter. Analysts began urging Microsoft to sell off Bing to a business like Facebook that might actually succeed in competing with Google.

It seemed like Bing would go down as yet another failure under CEO Steve Ballmer — a list that already included the Zune, Windows Vista and, well, smartphones.

Bing's desktop search market share hit 20% in the U.S. this March.

Bing's search for a viable business finally shows results

Microsoft stuck with Bing well past the point when many other companies would have called it quits — and began to see results.

Apple ditched Google search in 2013 amid an ongoing rivalry with the Internet giant and began relying exclusively on Bing to power searches through Siri, its personal assistant application that reaches millions of people around the world. Microsoft integrated Bing into a wide range of its software and hardware services, including Microsoft Office, Xbox and Cortana. And it recently renewed a partnership between Bing and Yahoo.

This week, Microsoft announced a 10-year deal to use Bing to power search on all of AOL's many online properties, replacing Google. At the same time, Bing agreed to shed load by sending map imaging employees to Uber.

Bing's efforts to operate leaner, a clear edict under current Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, combined with not having such large investments in resources as it did in the early days have arguably helped put the division on more stable financial footing. Meanwhile, its many partnerships and integrations have helped Bing's share of the U.S. desktop search market climb to 20%, potentially drawing in more search advertising revenue.

the one thing that i always think about with bing is its not where marketers are asking us they should put their dollars still.

"Google is still at the forefront of the search game and Bing is still piled in the 'other' search engine category," says Colburn, the marketing researcher. "It still has a little work to do with that."

But more and more, at least, Bing looks like a contender.