there are stories of electronic campagnolo shifting that date back to the mid 90's. there has also been photos of "production quality" groups back when shimano was still in the prototype stages.

one article i read said that one of campagnolo's spokesperson said that the electronic group was completed, they just chose to hold off the release date due to the poor economic conditions.(i cant find it now however) my guess is they will continue testing and try and learn from shimanos possible errors.