Quoting sources familiar with AOL's strategy, it seems that Microsoft is prepared to buy the popular web portal, which would then be put to use for outsourcing web search to the Bing search engine.

AOL CEO, Tim Armstrong in recent times noted that the corporation was trying to explore new web search deals with more than two possible partners. AOL at present outsources its web search to Google, which is clearly the market leader.

Whilst those discussions are still going on, the conclusion possibly will be an absolute sale of the corporation to Microsoft, which has over $37 billion in cash on hand.

AOL is valued at around $2.3 billion.

Both firms did not consent on commenting regarding the matter.