But games aren’t all that’s at stake. Aside from streaming video, the bulk of what Flash is used for on the Internet is advertising. So Edge could hasten the arrival of animated ads that get around both Flash blockers and the absence of Flash on iOS devices. Fernandez says advertisements are “easily the first target for the tool, because those are fairly straightforward in terms of the workflow and the content we’d be working with.” “People say Flash will die, so you won’t have advertising,” says Hilwa. “But do you really believe that? The fact is that most of the Web is monetized through advertising. Over time, advertising might shift to HTML5.” Supporting HTML5 does present one key challenge for Adobe. It controls Flash, but it doesn’t control the HTML5 standard, which puts Edge on a level playing field with other HTML5 development tools, says Hilwa. This gives Adobe every incentive to make Edge the best platform there is, whatever the consequences for Flash.