The networking giant surveyed 600 IT and business leaders and found 95 per cent of respondents said their organizations permitted employee-owned devices in the workplace. The survey also found that 84 per cent of companies provided BYOD IT support.

Dave MacDonald, CEO of solution provider Softchoice, of Toronto, said his company has not yet seen the BYOD trend take hold in the Canadian market. MacDonald believes that the BYOD trend is real and has prepared Softchoice, which is a Cisco channel partner, for this market transition, but that he has not run into a company that has a full BYOD policy in place. "Cost is an issue, but over time they will figure that out," he said.

One of Softchoice's BYOD readiness efforts includes a white label employee purchase program that would enable employees to source their computer or device of choice along with their preferred configuration.

As for Cisco, Winge added that the company has already moved software solutions such as Jabber and WebEx to other operating systems, tablets and smartphones.