Yahoo!’s search business is officially up for sale (or a partnership, or doing some other kind of deal that would save the company from financial doom).

“We are not opposed to doing a deal that would maximize the value of the business in one way or another, be it a partnership or be it a long term sale,” Yahoo! CFO Blake Jorgensen told reporters.

But Jorgenson added that severing Yahoo! search from the rest of the business would be difficult. “It’s extremely difficult to draw a line down the middle of the organisation and split it in two pieces.”

Microsoft (MS) CEO Steve Ballmer has recently indicated that his company is still interested in acquiring Yahoo!’s search business but, considering last year’s unsuccessful — at times bitter — negotiations between MS and Yahoo!, one assumes the bargaining would be long and hard.