Prodigy (online service)

Prodigy Communications, L.P.
Company type	Public
Industry	Telecommunications
Founded	February 13, 1984 (as Trintex)
Fate	Defunct (part of AT&T Inc.)
Headquarters	White Plains, New York, U.S. (earlier); Austin, Texas, U.S.
Products	Telephone, Internet, Television

Prodigy Communications Corporation was an online service from 1984 to 2001 that offered its subscribers access to a broad range of networked services. It was one of the major internet service providers of the 1990s.

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.^[1] Prodigy was described by the New York Times as "family-oriented" and one of "the Big Three information services" in 1994.^[2] By 1990, it was the second-largest online service provider with 465,000 subscribers, trailing only CompuServe's 600,000.^[3] In 1993 it was the largest.^[4]

In 2001, it was acquired by SBC Communications, which in 2005 became the present iteration of AT&T. The Mexican branch of Prodigy, however, was acquired by Telmex.

^ Tech Republic: "The Pre-Internet Online Service That Didn't Live Up To Its Name
^ Peter H. Lewis (November 29, 1994). "The Compuserve Edge: Delicate Data Balance". The New York Times.
^ Shapiro, Eben. "THE MEDIA BUSINESS; New Features Are Planned By Prodigy", The New York Times, September 6, 1990 (The French Minitel had one million, but was used mainly from passive low-cost ASCII/Teletex terminals). Accessed February 4, 2008. "Prodigy has become the second-largest and fastest-growing computer-information company since it was introduced in 1988. It has 465,000 subscribers, compared with more than 600,000 for Compuserve Information Services, a unit of H & R Block Inc."
^ Cite error: The named reference ProdReboot9.NYT was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[1] Tech Republic: "The Pre-Internet Online Service That Didn't Live Up To Its Name

[CIS1.NYT-2] Peter H. Lewis (November 29, 1994). "The Compuserve Edge: Delicate Data Balance". The New York Times.

[3] Shapiro, Eben. "THE MEDIA BUSINESS; New Features Are Planned By Prodigy", The New York Times, September 6, 1990 (The French Minitel had one million, but was used mainly from passive low-cost ASCII/Teletex terminals). Accessed February 4, 2008. "Prodigy has become the second-largest and fastest-growing computer-information company since it was introduced in 1988. It has 465,000 subscribers, compared with more than 600,000 for Compuserve Information Services, a unit of H & R Block Inc."

[ProdReboot9.NYT-4] Cite error: The named reference ProdReboot9.NYT was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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