Unless there is some major glitch, there might finally be a search and online advertising deal struck between Yahoo and Microsoft at long last.

Top executives at Microsoft–including SVP of the Online Audience Business Group Yusuf Mehdi, search head Satya Nadella and top digital exec Qi Lu–have all flown down to Silicon Valley from their Redmond, Wash., HQ today to iron out the remaining issues.

If all goes well, the deal could be announced within the next week, sources said.

Said one person close to the situation, “It is down to the short strokes, for sure, it is just a question if we can finally close this.”

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Recently, BoomTown reported that talks between Microsoft and Yahoo had gotten “hot and heavy.”

That mood seems to be continuing, as many sources close to the situation on both sides said that the pair are coming ever closer to a search and advertising partnership deal.

“It’s meaningful,” said one source. “The fact that there is even progress and engagement, after so many failed attempts between us, says a lot.”

Indeed, there seems to be a lot of engagement between the two sides of late, and some sources think a deal could even be struck within the next few weeks.

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Yesterday, BoomTown opined that Microsoft was nearing a decision on who would become the head of its digital efforts.

And, according to several sources and some puzzling by me–if the deal can be sealed–I think that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s top choice is former Yahoo tech star Qi Lu.

If Ballmer manages to pull off the hire of Lu–on the heels of already grabbing another top Yahoo search exec, Sean Suchter, which I posted on yesterday–the aggressive exec could almost be bypassing a Yahoo search partnership he has long sought by sucking the talent right out of the place instead.

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Well, for sure, Microsoft execs were not doing high-fives after Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang said he was stepping down yesterday, as Yahoo execs reportedly did after the software giant abandoned its takeover bid for the Internet giant earlier this year.

Well, maybe some small and discreet ones.

And while Microsoft will not be making a renewed offer for the company now that Yang will be going, execs for the software giant were burning up the phone wires down to Silicon Valley yesterday trying to make sure it is well positioned to make the deal it does want: A sweeping search partnership with Yahoo to help battle Google.

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One thing is absolutely true: It is Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and only Ballmer who knows for sure whom he is most interested in to take over the dicey job of head of the software giant’s long-suffering online services business.

But there is a movement afoot among its developers and other execs at Microsoft to push for Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, who replaced Founder Bill Gates in the job just over two years ago.

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Over the last two days, BoomTown has been enjoying the perfect Pacific Northwest summer weather, visiting several Seattle-based companies and also Microsoft HQ in nearby Redmond.

Seattle is still essentially Silicon Valley North, except a lot more laid back and with less of an egregiously opportunistic, what’s-the-next-hot- start-up tone one feels any day of the week in Palo Alto.

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So what other Web media company facing a hostile investor does CNET remind you of?

Disgruntled investors, a troubled Web 1.0 company whose management is recalcitrant to give in, an obviously powerful, but underutilized set of assets.

The acquisition of CNET by CBS for $1.8 billion in cash is the happy ending of this scenario. Now Yahoo needs one too.

The sky is indeed falling, Jerry Yang, so get to the king of Microsoft before the Icahn fox–as it did the guileless Chicken Little–eats you up.

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