In what looks like a move that will spell the end of the platform as a whole in the long run, Adobe has announced that it will give up on the development of Flash for mobile devices.

Graphics software giant Adobe announced plans for layoffs [...] ahead of a major restructuring. The company intends to cut approximately 750 members of its workforce and said that it would refocus its digital media business. Adobe is reportedly going to stop developing new mobile ports of its Flash player browser plugin. Instead, the company’s mobile Flash development efforts will focus on AIR and tools for deploying Flash content as native applications. The move marks a significant change in direction for Adobe, which previously sought to deliver uniform support for Flash across desktop and mobile browsers.

Adobe has also announced that it will completely open source its Flex tools for building Flash applications.

Adobe and the Open Spoon Foundation are preparing to open up development of the Flex SDK. They plan to donate the technology to “an established open source foundation” so that the Flex community and other stakeholders can participate in developing future versions of the SDK.

Flex is a development framework for building conventional applications with Flash. It’s especially targeted at the enterprise space and has some specialized capabilities for creating data-driven software. The core components of Flex were released as open source under the Mozilla Public License in 2007. Flex development, however, has always been directed solely by Adobe. The move to an open governance model will make the process more inclusive. Going forward, Adobe says that the Flex roadmap will be defined in the open by the project’s governing board. The group will include Adobe engineers, third-party Flex application developers, and representatives of companies that use and contribute to Flex.

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In what looks like a move that will spell the end of the platform as a whole in the long run, Adobe has announced that it will give up on the development of Flash for mobile devices. Graphics software giant Adobe announced plans for layoffs ahead of a major restructuring. The company intends to ...