Flash being replaced with Adobe Animate CC

So the news is out. Flash is being replaced with adobe animate cc. The full adobe announcement can be seen here. What does this mean? It means that Adobe is trying to rebrand Flash. Flash is not going away. Adobe is essentially just renaming it. However, there is more to it than that. Adobe has been working on various HTML5 output tools for the past few years (ie Edge Animate). So when this is released over the next few months, will Edge Animate go away and be merged with Flash? Will Flash actually have good HTML5 output?

Currently instructional designers are using captivate and articulate for most of their development because these tools are easy to use. However, these tools have major limitations. The HTML5 output is OK but even if it was perfect these tools are a little more than animated flash cards. They do an ok job but a serious training developer needs something more powerful with no limits. Currently this involves programming (ie javascript, java, etc), flash (which isnt compatible on mobile devices), or game engine software like unity. If the new version of flash truly can push out HTML5 content that has the power of an object oriented language then it could be a game changer. However, I do not see this happening just yet. All of the tests I have done are far from perfect using what Adobe currently has on the market. I think a big issue is that Adobe Animate really needs to use javascript instead of AS3 for programming but I am not sure this is the direction they are going – instead they push out AS3 content and convert it to javascript. I guess we will find out in the next few months when Animate is released.