ACCESS Co., Ltd., best known for its NetFront line of mobile Internet browsers, acquired PalmSource early last month for $324 million. Well, it appears the Tokyo-based company wasn't the only one set on buying the struggling Palm platform developer.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports Motorola had its eye on PalmSource as well. In fact, the electronics giant asserts it had even closed the deal on September 7th for $17.25 per share, a couple of days before ACCESS announced its $18.50 per share buyout.

Motorola is suing PalmSource for $8.7 million in damages. An amount, it told a judge at Delaware Chancery Court, previously agreed upon as compensation or a breakup fee should its deal with the Palm platform vendor fall through.

Court papers state, "PalmSource was obligated to pay Motorola the termination fee of $8,697,595 on or before Sept. 16, 2005.'' It didn't, hence Motorola’s lawsuit.

Motorola's connections to PalmSource go back to the beginning of Palm-based mobile devices. Nearly all early Palm handhelds and smartphones ran on Motorola's DragonBall MX1 microprocessors until around 2002, when the platform and most manufacturers moved to ARM CPUs like Intel's XScale models.