The news today that Adobe is preparing to drop Flash on mobile browsers is surprising only because it shows how little faith Adobe really had in the Flash Player even as it thumped its chest and made so much noise about Apple’s decision to keep Flash out of iPhone and iPad browsers.

There are two major impacts that arise from this decision.

The most important one is that there are companies out there who were depending on Flash in the mobile browser as part of their own product strategy.

Not DesignAxiom, by the way. RIM and other tablet manufacturers, however, may be scrambling this minute to pull media buys and ads trumpeting Flash on their devices. And there are likely website developers who have been buying the party line about portability–”Flash Player everywhere” and the various noises emanating from Adobe about the improvements in Flash performance on mobile–perhaps hoping that Flash would make it into Apple’s walled garden sometime.

At DesignAxiom we’ve been wholly unimpressed with Flash in the mobile space since the early days of Flash Lite. Lately, we’ve been telling our customers to forget Flash on mobile devices and build native apps for the devices they think are important, and what’s important right now is iPhone and iPad.

The second impact of Adobe’s announcement is that no one will hear the “browser” qualifier. By the time this news spreads far and wide, people will simply hear that Adobe has killed Flash on mobile devices. And that’s pretty close to the truth. Only a small minority of Flash developers are investing themselves in building Apps for devices using Adobe AIR.

So far all intents and purposes, Flash on mobile devices is dead.

The question is, where does this leave Flash at all? There are a few places that Flash still has life and where neither HTML5 or mobile devices are likely to challenge it. Facebook applications and casual games on the web (often the same thing) will remain friendly to Flash for the time being.

But Adobe is making everyone nervous with it’s “cut and run” approach to its platform, and it will take some bold leadership and imagination if they want to keep Flash relevant and viable in the future.

I’m not holding my breath.