44 | AUGUST 2017
Business
Read online at www.proinstaller.co.uk
HOW SMARTPHONES ARE
CHANGING THE TRADE
The smartphone is changing your life. Benjamin Dyer of Powered Now explains why that
is the case and looks at the impact on professional installers’ business lives.
In 1984, the first mobile
phone was introduced by
Motorola in the USA and by
1986 they had appeared on
the streets of the UK. Every-
body thought these stupid
devices were expensive
and silly toys. They were
thought to only be used by
‘Yuppies’. That’s Young Up-
wardly Mobile Profession-
als in case you wondered.
Restaurants were generally
applauded for banning their
use. I don’t have any figures
but I am guessing that
installers were as cynical
about them as anyone else.
Roll forward to today and
I doubt if anyone running a
trade business doesn’t carry
a mobile phone. The nay-
sayers have either retired or
bowed to the inevitable.
The interesting fact is that
mobile phone penetration,
ten years after the mobile
was introduced, was only
7% of the UK population.
That didn’t prevent this
rising to 100% just ten years
later. By then, more peo-
ple had two mobiles than
none.
Every time new technolo-
gy arrives it gets poo-pooed.
Of course, sometimes that’s
correct. The square steering
wheel on the Allegro from
the ill-fated British Leyland
Austin brand never caught
on. Certainly, the Sinclair
C5 was a failure, although
interestingly the problem
was more about the timing
of electric cars than the
principle.
It’s actually pre