In an entertaining, slightly off color, and by some accounts inspiring performance at D: the All Things Digital conference, Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz left the door open for a search deal.  That deal would have to be made with someone with the right technology, the right data, and “boatloads of money”, according to numerous tweets coming from the conference.  C-NET’s Ina Fried is there and has more.

When asked if Yahoo! was talking to Microsoft, she replied “yeah, a little bit”.  Yesterday there was speculation that a new LLC may be being formed to create a new corporation to deal with a Yahoo!-Microsoft search partnership.  Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is expected to unveil “Kumo” (or “Bing”, or even “Yahoo! Search”) tomorrow at D.  It’s unclear whether he will announce either a new name or a search partnership.

A live blog recap of the interview is up now, and the video will be up soon. We’ll get a link up as soon as we can. The video is available now.