(For More on Building Systems and Best Practicies, read Better Buildings, the quarterly supplement to Real Estate Forum).

NEW YORK CITY-There is what one observer refers to as a “flood” of new entrants into the hot building automation systems market. These start-ups, combined with such major players as Johnson Controls and Siemens, are growing toward annual revenues of $44 billion by 2018.

“We're seeing a rush of investment, creativity and revenues in developing what can be achieved with BAS data,” says Jonathan Collins, principal analyst at New York City-based ABI Research. And start-ups such as BuildingIQ, Sky Foundry and Viridity Energy are all jumping on the bandwagon.

Collins notes that these newcomers are pushing the envelope, skirting around direct competition with the big boys and developing their own takes on the issue of developing timely BAS data. “Software as a service or cloud services have the ability to pull together management of multiple buildings and applications within them, simplifying the process of improving energy efficiency for building owners,” explains Collins.

He adds that growing network connectivity has opened up these systems to SaaS applications developed to analyze building environmental performance “alongside a range of other data feeds such as local weather or energy pricing.” SaaS offerings alone will account for $4 billion in the next five years. That represents a compound annual growth rate of 29%.

Of course, a wider range of offerings can only be good for building developers and owners. “The scope of offerings and the ability of the players will be key to bringing their new services to the traditionally staid and entrenched BAS market,” Collins says.

Dave Bartlett, an IBM vice president, couldn't agree more on the changes new developments in software and delivery are making in this field. In the most recent issue of Better Buildings, he said that, “the application of information and communication technology is changing how we manage efficiencies across all aspects of real estate at the portfolio and asset level. ICT can leverage an exponentially growing data set, streaming from the built environment in a way that benefits economic, operational and environmental mandates.”

“Imagine going to work in a high-performance, smart building every day,” adds Gordon Feller, director of urban information for Cisco Systems. “Workers could take advantage of flexible and productive workspaces, wireless and mobile capabilities and remote, collaborative technology. Smart buildings can connect systems and people virtually while measuring, monitoring and managing resources. Integrating this technology into working environments begins with connected real estate, creating a process of designing and renovating buildings to converge all systems onto a streamlined network.

“With more than $600 billion of new real estate constructed annually in the US and Canada alone,” he adds, “connected real estate offers an opportunity for developers and owners to create better work conditions and increase their property value. Connected buildings use a single IP network to converge data and systems with centralized operations, management and efficiencies, enabling owners to extract information from real estate assets.”