IBM Corp and Sears Roebuck & Co still have high hopes for their White Plains-based Prodigy Systems Co viewdata joint venture, and yesterday were due to announce the extension of the system to New York City area as a final step before making it a US-wide public service. Opening in Atlanta about a year ago, it is now available in Connecticut, California, Boston, Detroit, Baltimore, Washington DC and Philadelphia, and has an estimated 60,000 subscribers paying a flat $10 a month – the low rate and no usage charge is made possible by running advertising on the system. The system is thought to have cost $500m so far, but says it is ahead of plan and looks for 100,000 subscribers by October.
