Yesterday, Adobe Systems announced that they will be pulling the plug for Flash for mobile as well as sack 750 employees from North America and Europe to cut cost of expenses.  The decision to drop Flash for mobile was made so that they could focus on their HTML5 efforts like the Adobe Edge.

So what does this mean for the tech industry?  Will this affect consumers?  How will this pullout affect Apple Inc.?  What about Android-toting devices that rely on Flash for mobile?

Adobe’s number one detractor is Apple ever since co-founder Steve Jobs publicly scrutinized and criticized Flash back in 2010.  And the funny thing is, with this product pullout, Apple will be on the winning side once more.  You see, the selling point for Android-based devices is their ability to play Flash but with this pullout, Android devices will lose this edge.  Also, this move will give a chance to other companies that offer Flash in a different way like iSwifter, maker of iPad products that allow Flash games and video to remotely run on a proxy server and then be sent down to the mobile device

Most devices are now HTML5-capable and Abode is focusing on HTML5 and cloud, this could possibly be a winning situation for Adobe.  Jobs was very vocal that HTML5 is the answer, not Flash, so Adobe took his advice and is now pushing for HTML5.  Simply put, Adobe will be used by more consumers and developers even if they use iDevices.  Sad thing is, Android devices will still be on the losing end.

Adobe’s vice president and general manager of interactive development Danny Winokur stated, “HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively.  This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms.”

Google has not commented on the Flash pullout while RIM released the following statement to AllThingsD:

“As an Adobe source code licensee, we will continue to work on and release our own implementations. RIM remains committed to delivering an uncompromised Web browsing experience to our customers, including native support for Adobe Flash Player on our BlackBerry PlayBook tablet (similar to a desktop PC browser), as well as HTML5 support on both our BlackBerry smartphone and PlayBook browsers.  In fact, we are pleased that Adobe will focus more efforts on the opportunities that HTML5 presents for our developers, and shares our commitment to HTML5 as we discussed together at DevCon Americas.”

And the most recent news from Adobe is that it’s pulling another plug.  In a statement, the company confirmed that they will no longer focus on Flash plugin into browsers on connected devices like smart TVs.

Adobe spokesperson stated that, “Adobe will continue to support existing licensees who are planning on supporting Flash Player for web browsing on digital home devices and are using the Flash Player Porting Kit to do so. However we believe the right approach to deliver content on televisions is through applications, not a web browsing experience, and we will continue to encourage the device and content publishing community down that path.”

But this doesn’t mean that Adobe trashed all their plans for connected devices, what they want right now is to have native apps available on such devices like connected TVs with the use of the Adobe AIR framework.