In 2005 VAR sales of VoiP services through the channel was a hard sell to companies used to buying telco services from a Baby Bell. But back in the day, Tom Pincince said he was convinced that VoiP would someday become a staple of any IT solution.

In 2005 Pincince was CEO of VoiP firm Brix Networks. His VoiP bet paid off with digital voice services now table stakes for IT pros. The US VoiP market was worth an estimated $3 billion in 2014.

Today, Pincince is CEO of Digital Lumens, a so-called LED-as-a-Service firm that leverages the Internet of Things to help companies cut their lighting bills by up to 90 percent and intelligently manage their lighting. Pincince said intelligent lighting in 2015 is where VoiP services were in 2005.

“There are a lot of analogs to selling intelligent lighting today and selling VoiP in 2005,” Pincince said. “At the time we struggled with how to sell voice to an IT guy. Back in 2005 there were the guys selling handsets and PBX boxes. Then there were the guys selling PCs, servers and cloud. Today there has been a complete convergence of IT and voice.”

He said digitization of light via LED technology has created as many new management opportunities as the advent of VoiP. And much like VoiP, intelligent lighting is a booming market. Networked lighting controls will be a $5.3 billion business in 2020 up from $1.7 billion in 2013, according to 2013 report from Navigant Research.

Intelligent lighting includes connected LED lighting that includes occupancy sensors, power management, and security sensors. Intelligent LED lights include a processor and memory and link together via a mesh network. Vendors, such as Digital Lumens, offer advanced management and services for building management firms.