Interesting news from the 3GSM World Congress this morning in Barcelona: Adobe (ADBE) has announced that the next version of its Flash Lite software for mobile devices will support video. Please recall that the ability of Flash to stream and display video seamlessly across multiple operating systems and web browser types was critical in unleashing the explosion of video online. Both YouTube and MySpace, for example, use the Flash video format, and now, in theory, all that content can be streamed seamlessly to your smartphone.

From a software and operating system point of view, smartphones remain a terribly fragmented universe, and the prospect of a single, easy-to-use video format is obviously compelling. Naturally, Adobe is hoping to extend its position in video from desktop to mobile device. It's all about broadening what they call the "Flash ecosystem."

Still, duplicating in mobile the company's success on the desktop may not be so easy. Yes, they've already made some inroads: "The number of Flash-enabled devices sold worldwide tripled in 2006 to reach more than 200 million," reports Richard Martin at Unstrung, adding that "120 million devices running Flash shipped last year, representing 12 percent of the mobile-phone market." But that still means that 88% of the mobile market does not yet have Flash. Among those that will not support Flash Lite, says Martin: the super popular RIM Blackberries and Palm Treos. Ouch.

Still, this is clearly the right move for Adobe, which is perhaps why the stock, down roughly 12% since late December, has ticked up nearly 1% since Friday.