More employers are starting to encourage workers to bring their own smartphones to work, in large part because it saves the employer the expense of securing the devices itself. So says mobile security firm Good Technology, which dubs the trend "Bring Your Own Device."

"“You have users bringing these devices in the front door," John Herrema, senior vice president of corporate strategy for mobile security firm Good Technology, told Securities and Technology Monitor. "And what's interesting about these devices is, not only are they very capable, but the user can't walk out of the store with one of these things and not attach a data plan to it."

Good Technology recently surveyed its 400 top customers – 72% of which said they were already supporting their own BYOD policy. In a recent survey of its 400 top customers, 29 of 40, or 72%, of the Good financial services customers who responded said they already were supporting a BYOD strategy.

iOs, Android but Not RIM

For marketers seeking to take advantage of this trend, that means RIM can be taken out of the equation. The top two mobile platforms favored by users are iOs and Android, despite RIM's moves to expand into the consumer market.

Narrowing the choice down further to either Android or iOS is much trickier. The two platforms are very competitive, especially over the last several months when Android started to edge closer and then overtake iOS.

Expect Some Bumps

However, before marketers assume that, with the demise of the relatively closed ecosystem that is RIM, a new front into the enterprise has been opened to them, they should consider the experience of KLA-Tencor (KLAC), a Silicon Valley semiconductor equipment maker, which set out to deploy iPads to all 5,400 of its employees after it posted strong quarterly returns. CIO Ashwin Ballal sums up the experience in CIO.com.

The plan was for the iPad to tap into KLA-Tencor's network for e-mail, calendaring, contacts, Web apps and other purposes. Ballal had to deal with a help desk that would be inundated with an approximate 10,000 calls to get the device set up–assuming roughly two per employee–and shipping the device to its global locations. Ballal did some due diligence on the mobile vendors that offered self-help applications for his situation but found many of their promises lacking.

Finally, he felt compelled to add a desktop virtualization service to the mix–which is not necessary for iPad use in the corporate environment, but very important for high-level security.