Walter Thompson and sister company JWT Direct (New York) followed on September 6, 1990. A nationwide launch developed by ad agency J. The marketing roll-out plan closely followed IBM's Systems Network Architecture (SNA) network backbone. The company's service was launched regionally in 1988 in Atlanta, Hartford, and San Francisco under the name Prodigy. CBS left the venture in 1986 when CBS CEO Tom Wyman was divesting properties outside of CBS's core broadcasting business. The company was headed by Theodore Papes, a career IBM executive, until his retirement in 1992. Prodigy was founded on February 13, 1984, as Trintex, a joint venture between CBS, computer manufacturer IBM, and retailer Sears, Roebuck and Company. After concluding the market test, CBS and AT&T took the data and went their separate ways in pursuit of developing and profiting from this market demand. The company conducted a market test of 100 homes in Ridgewood, New Jersey to gauge consumer interest in a Videotex-based TV set-top device that would allow consumers to shop at home and receive news, sports, and weather. The roots of Prodigy date to 1980 when broadcaster CBS and telecommunications firm AT&T Corporation formed a joint venture named Venture One in Fair Lawn, New Jersey.
The Mexican branch of Prodigy, however, was acquired by Telmex. In 2001, it was acquired by SBC Communications, which in 2005 became the present iteration of AT&T. By 1990, it was the second-largest online service provider with 465,000 subscribers, trailing only CompuServe's 600,000. Prodigy was described by the New York Times as "family-oriented" and one of "the Big Three information services" in 1994. The company claimed it was the first consumer online service, citing its graphical user interface and basic architecture as differentiation from CompuServe, which started in 1979 and used a command-line interface. It was one of the major internet service providers of the 1990s. Prodigy Communications Corporation was an online service from 1984 to 2001 that offered its subscribers access to a broad range of networked services. Online service that operated from 1984 to 2001 Prodigy Communications, L.P.įebruary 13, 1984 39 years ago ( ) (as Trintex)
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