Adobe today launched the first products and services in its Edge suite of HTML5 development tools. Adobe Edge Animate 1.0 aids Web developers and designers in the creation of animation and interactive content; Edge Inspect (formerly called Shadow) provides simultaneous cross-mobile-device previewing and debugging. The third product to go live today was Edge Web Fonts, a new font service offering more than 500 free fonts including two new ones from Adobe.

The company also demonstrated two other Edge tools that are currently in development. The first is a design tool, Edge Reflow, designed to facilitate the development of so-called "responsive" pages that alter their layout depending on the size and resolution of the device they're being viewed on—a technique that is becoming more popular as a way of handling the ever-increasing number of different form factors in common use. The second is Edge Code, a more programmer-oriented code editor with live previewing and the ability to expand and edit CSS and JavaScript from within the HTML view, rather than having to jump between files.

As well as these Edge tools, Adobe announced the release of PhoneGap Build. This cloud service takes HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript, and combines them together to produce applications for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, webOS, BlackBerry OS, Bada, and Symbian.

Edge Animate will cost $499 for a perpetual license or $14.99 per month for a single application subscription. Edge Animate is also being added to the full Creative Cloud subscriptions ($49.99 per month paid annually, or $74.99 per month on an ad hoc basis). For a limited period, the $499 price is being waived, and Edge Animate will be free.

Edge Inspect and PhoneGap Build are all being offered as services to Creative Cloud members. With free Creative Cloud accounts, PhoneGap Build users will be able to perform 100 builds per month, and can develop one paid app and an unlimited number of open source apps. Paid Creative Cloud accounts bump this up to 25 paid apps and 1,000 builds per month. Developers needing more PhoneGap Build capacity can also pay $9.99 per month for the same 25 paid/1,000 build limit. Edge Inspect's pricing is similar; free Creative Cloud accounts will be able to test on a single device, with unlimited devices available for $9.99 per month, and also bundled as part of the paid Creative Cloud subscription.

Edge Web Fonts are available for free, with no apparent limitations on the number of sites or pageviews. For those not wanting to use the free fonts, Adobe continues to offer services from Typekit at a range of price points. As with everything else, paid Creative Cloud subscribers also have, as part of their subscription, access to Typekit's $49.99 per year tier.

Adobe is currently trying to engage in two transformations at once. First, there's the move from Flash to HTML5. Second, there's the move from perpetual software licenses to subscription services.

With Flash, Adobe was world leader when it came to producing the tooling and software for developing rich, interactive Web content. Flash's biggest competitor, Microsoft's Silverlight, never came close to rivaling Flash's ubiquity or abundance. Even today, with HTML5 being the preferred tool of choice for many developers, Flash has a clear lead when it comes to both the capabilities of its design and development tools, and the maturity of its development model.

Adobe is working to establish the same position in the world of HTML5 development tools with the Edge range of software and services. Early indications look promising. The company has a long history of producing tools that are used and enjoyed by non-programming designers and with Edge Animate it is bringing that expertise to the HTML5 world. Edge Animate uses offers timelines, events, and a library of animations to allow creating animated and interactive content without requiring programming skills (though for those who do want to edit the code by hand, it's all powered by jQuery). In this way, Edge Animate is filling important tooling gaps that exist for HTML5.

Edge Reflow appears that it will similarly address a gap: responsive design is arguably an important approach to addressing smartphones and tablets, but it's one that's poorly supported with current development tools.

The introduction of new products and services also makes Adobe's subscription pricing more appealing. The paid Creative Cloud subscription already gives you access to more software than even the $2,599 perpetually licensed Creative Suite 6 Master Collection, and the addition of the first Edge extends that advantage. On top of that, the subscription provides access to Adobe's online services, including the new Edge services, which is something that the company values at several hundred dollars per year when taken together.

Depending on exact needs, the perpetual licenses still may be better value, but plainly the company wants its users to adopt the subscription scheme. Adding in extra, relevant capabilities is instrumental in winning people over.

As well as these transitions, the company is also embracing, in a limited way, open source. The two new fonts it's including with Edge Web Fonts both have open licenses and are available in the company's GitHub repository. Edge Inspect is built on top of and around the open source wienre, and Edge Code is powered by the company's open source brackets code editor.

Edge Animate and Edge Inspect were well received during their beta periods. If they prove successful now that they're commercial products, Adobe could be well on its way to making lemonade out of the lemons of Flash's fall from grace: a better, more diverse product line that manages to be no less important to the Web design and development communities. The company hopes the line manages to be popular, too.