Access, based in Japan, surprised the technology and financial industries on Friday with an acquisition of PalmSource for $324.3 million. Access is best known to most for its NetFront browser available on many mobile devices.

PalmSource has been struggling since the split with the hardware division Palm in 2003. With a sale of the Palm brand name to Palm a few weeks ago, the industry was put on notice that PalmSource was examining new options for the futures, but most assumed that the “two Palms” would reunite. However, with increasing discussion of Palm prepping a Microsoft OS powered version of its popular Treo, this seemed less likely.

According to a CNET interview with Access, Access is committed to supporting the Palm OS. Many analysts predict that Access will complete PalmSource’s long transition to a Linux-basd version of the Palm OS.