WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE) via First! -- Prodigy Services Co., the first commercial online service to launch Web access this past January, has won the Information Industry Association's (IIA) Online Access 1995 HotShots Award for the Best Consumer Web Access. A panel of nine judges, including representatives from America Online Inc.; Capital Cities/ABC; Simutronics; Disclosure Inc.; Orbit-Questel Inc.; Individual Inc.; and The Bureau of National Affairs Inc., selected this year's winners.

The IIA award trophy was presented to Prodigy representatives at a luncheon today held at the LeParker Meridien Hotel in New York City.

The IIA award is the latest in a string of awards and accolades for the Prodigy Web browser, including the Interactive Services Association Award for Best Innovation in 1995, and PC Computing magazine recently designated it "best for browsing." In addition, Prodigy emerged victorious earlier this year among the major online services in the Internet World Shootout, and received the 1995 John C. Dvorak Award for Outstanding Commercial Online Information Service.

"This award is more great recognition for the Prodigy team's hard work over the past year," said Ed Bennett, president and CEO at Prodigy. "There's no substitute for positive feedback like this, as it gives us all the inspiration and determination to sustain our forward momentum.

Not resting on its accomplishments, Prodigy today announced enhancements to its Web browser, including:

-- The addition of in-line JPEG images, as well as image wrapping to allow the insertion of images and to wrap text completely around them;

-- The ability to view Source HTML code online, allowing the user to see the HTML tags used to create a homepage;

-- Browser background images, color and text color;

-- Colored text distinguishing for the user which links have been visited;

-- New ordered list options, allowing the user to display lists using letters, Roman numerals or numbers;

-- Various font sizes, including big and little text, as well as text with superscript; and

-- Memory and speed enhancements to improve performance when accessing larger documents and forms.

Prodigy also confirmed that it will begin offering the industry-standard Netscape browser in early 1996, in addition to its own award-winning browser. Prodigy is the only major online service to sign a licensing agreement with Netscape.

Prodigy, a partnership of IBM and Sears, markets the Prodigy service, America's most recognized online network and the world's largest dial-up access provider to the Internet's World Wide Web. Prodigy offers its more than two million members a range of news, weather and sports, financial information; educational content; games; reference materials; e-mail, bulletin boards, USENET newsgroups and Chat; travel reservations; shopping; a discount brokerage and online banking.

And some more ground-breaking technology (2/96):

SPEEDIER GRAPHICS ON COMMERCIAL SERVICES Tired of watching the hourglass, waiting for those fancy graphics to download? America Online, CompuServe and Prodigy all plan to do something about it. Prodigy's Web browser allows users to interact immediately with text material while graphics download in the background, and AOL has announced a similar product for release sometime this year.

miller@minerva.cis.yale.edu

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