But users aren't content to just send messages. "At this stage," said the Midland CTO, "our IM app allows staffers to search and add their colleagues, broadcast messages to groups or a department, and view which properties agents are trying to sell on the clients' behalf."

The firm has tested Midland Messenger for a month and plans a formal launch in May, but continues to receive new function suggestions from users. "For instance, we might add functions that allow workers to add property pictures, videos, and microblogs to the app," said Fung.

In addition, the property player is testing another app they developed in-house: the Dropbox-like "e-leaflet" for its BYOD program. According to Fung, planned storage size is about 1-2 GB per user. At present, the firm is studying requirements for a sales force automation app to be available on the Web as well as iOS and Android tablets.

At Cisco, BYOD -- rolled out two years ago -- was a natural step given the fast growth of mobile devices on the firm's network. According to Garrick Ng, head of Systems Engineering at Cisco Hong Kong, the firm had 50,538 mobile devices on its network by December 2011, up 52% year-on-year and more than 63,000 employees worldwide at Cisco by January 2012. "Sooner or later the number of mobile devices on our network will be more than our headcount," he said.