At the D8 conference, AOL chairman Tim Armstrong said that the company, which is currently using Google for search on its sites, is looking for a new search deal. Armstrong said he was negotiating with more than two potential partners (which is kind of weird because besides Google and Bing, who else would it be? Alta Vista?). But Nicholas Carlson of Silicon Valley Insider suspects that this is all just show before AOL sells out to Microsoft and pairs up with MSN. It’s rumor but it’s something to watch. AOL is far removed from the days where it dominated the internet but it still has millions of faithful subscribers. Migrate those people over to something with Microsoft’s software capabilities and you could have a pretty powerful entity.