Dow Jones & Co. has launched a new mobile application for Apple's iPhone and iPod touch.

Dow Jones Sales Triggers is available in the Apple App Store. The app gives mobile professionals access to up-to-the-minute intelligence about business changes such as management moves, mergers and new investments.

"Our strategy is two-pronged: one, the iPhone is game-changing platform -- we think it could be as revolutionary as the cell phone was to communication, as the iPhone has had a similar impact on the mobile Web and apps as well," said Frank Filippo, vice president of products for Dow Jones Business and Relationship Intelligence, Princeton, NJ.

"Two, it's the perfect vehicle for us to expose the differentiated capabilities of Dow Jones Sales Triggers," he said. "We extract business happenings from the news, categorize them and send them to people with an events-based lead model, and now we've taken that capability and put that on the iPhone for the mobile professional.

"Dow Jones is a publishing and media company, and we're focusing our efforts on value-propositions such as this related to business news."

One key demographic for this iPhone app is sales professionals who need to stay on top of prospects and customers in their territory.

"This app is mostly for the enterprise b-to-b salesperson and anyone who sells products and services to commercial companies, such as executive search firms and insurance companies," Mr. Filippo said. "We track management moves, CEOs and CFOs hirings and firings, mergers and acquisitions, new investments, etcetera.

"This app provides a lot of value for anyone who finds value in more important business events such as those," he said.

At a time when Research In Motion's BlackBerry -- whose bread-and-butter has been business professionals -- is courting the consumer market, Apple's iPhone is having a significant impact in the enterprise sphere.

Dow Jones Sales Triggers is the newest offering in Dow Jones's product suite of customer intelligence services.

The app features a collection of news, company and executive information.

This data is designed to reduce the time and work required for sales professionals to discover opportunities and leads, track competitive pressures and stay on top of threats based on business changes or events.

Sales professionals can use an app of this nature to help them get the right information at any time via their handset.

Dow Jones developed Dow Jones Sales Triggers in response to the needs of its growing business base.
It is designed to deliver intelligence based on facts and events that signal solid sales opportunities.

Dow Jones Sales Triggers lets sales professionals take immediate action by showing which events may trigger the best opportunities.

Additionally, users can look up a company or executive to retrieve information and find the right individuals at target companies included in the triggers.

As professionals seek to outperform their competition during turbulent economic times, staying on top of the latest intelligence is important.

Dow Jones claims that it is no longer good enough to follow traditional business news and industry trades.

The Dow Jones Sales Triggers application for iPhone and iPod touch devices gives on-the-go professionals mobile access to the significant events, letting them make assessments and take action on new business opportunities.

Dow Jones Sales Triggers is available for free from Apple's App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at http://www.itunes.com/appstore in the business category.

Dow Jones & Co. is a News Corp. company.

Dow Jones is a provider of global business news and information services. Its Consumer Media Group publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch and the Far Eastern Economic Review.

The company's Enterprise Media Group includes Dow Jones Business and Relationship Intelligence, Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Factiva, Dow Jones Client Solutions, Dow Jones Indexes and Dow Jones Financial Information Services. Its Local Media Group operates community-based information franchises.

Dow Jones owns 50 percent of SmartMoney and 33 percent of Stoxx Ltd. and provides news content to radio stations in the U.S.

News Corp. owns Dow Jones.

Dow Jones Business & Relationship Intelligence includes global news and analysis of millions of companies, the executives that manage them and the relationships that link them.

"At this point, we're offering the application at no cost to users -- they can download it via the App Store free of charge," Mr. Filippo said. "We want to get the Dow Jones brand out there so that people associate it with high-value sales triggers."

Dow Jones is also offering a number of subscription-based versions of the app for upselling to consumers.

Dow Jones plans to put its marketing muscle behind the app, although it expects some viral growth as well.

"It's really a simple approach, since the App Store itself is a distribution platform," Mr. Filippo said. "We have a range of mobile initiatives, including Dow Jones Sales Works for BlackBerry and WSJ.com's mobile offering for BlackBerry, and this iPhone app is the latest addition to those."