Hoover?s released its new application to provide sales and business professionals access to location-based business information.

The Hoover?s Near Here application is available to iPhone and iPod touch users. The application is $29.99, but will be available for $19.99 for a limited time.

?Our strategy was to focus on solving a very specific problem for our customer,? said Lindsay Duran, product marketing manager at Hoover, Austin, TX. "The specific work flow problem is the need to quickly find prospects while on the go or traveling.

"In the event a meeting with a prospect gets cancelled, the salesperson can easily find and contact potential prospects near them or near where they are going to be to ensure their trip or day is as productive as possible," she said.

Hoover?s is a company that provides its customers with insight and information about companies, industries and key decision makers. The company claims that consumers can use its tools to find and connect to the right people to get business done.

Here is a screen grab of the application:

Search here
Using the application, consumers can find companies based on their current location or any other location in the United States and Canada.

Additionally, users can refine search results to meet their specific requirements by applying several criteria, including multiple ranges of revenue and number of employees at a particular location, multiple industries or a simple keyword search and they can save those filters for future searches.

Consumers can adjust the search area by moving the map or changing the search address and are able to increase or decrease map search results by using the pinch and pull method.

The application lets users retrieve key data points, including a company?s name, address, phone number, Web site, primary industry, annual sales, number of employees at that location and key contacts and titles at that location.

Here is another screen grab of the application:

Feature here
In addition, users can place a phone call to the company, visit the company?s Web site, get step-by-step driving directions and find local competitors.

Consumers can also sort companies in ascending or descending order by annual sales, company name, or total employees and bookmark their favorite locations for future searches and favorite companies.

Hoover?s claims that it is focused heavily on the design and supporting infrastructure of the application, so that it can provide the best possible mobile experience to traveling sales professionals who need to make use of every minute when they are on the road.

The application is currently available for iPhone and iTouch users and Hoover?s is focusing on Apple products only right now.

The company said that at this time they are not looking to expand to other smartphone platforms, but will look into it for 2011.

?One thing that we have learned from our customers is that sales people and business professionals really want products and an application that works within their work flow,? Ms. Duran said.