For more than a year Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) has had to endure slings and arrows as a litany of criticism has rained down on its Flash product. All the while Adobe fiercely defended Flash just as you would expect.

That's why it was a little surprising when Adobe decided to hedge its bets this week and release a new pre-beta HTML 5 development tool called Adobe Edge. Even more ironic is the fact that Adobe is billing Edge as a tool for developers who want to adhere to web standards, which is what Flash critics have been complaining about since the release of the iPad.

In fact, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs has been Flash's loudest critic, claiming that because it doesn't adhere to standards it tends to bog things down and crash browsers. He outlined these views in the now famous, "Thoughts on Flash" memo.

Edge is being released to Adobe's Lab so that developers can help shape the tool moving forward. That Adobe has embraced HTML 5 in this way suggests that it sees the writing on the wall, and if Adobe wants to continue to be the premier web development tool company it is going to have to support HTML 5 along side of Flash for the foreseeable future.

How well it balances these two seemingly-conflicting tools could define the success of the company moving forward.

For more information:
- see the Adobe press release

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