"The technology part was pretty easy compared to the rest of it," Conner says. Ingram Micro uses MobileIron's mobile device management software to handle such functions as remote deployment and configuration and security policies, including remote wipe.

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Privacy in BYOD policies has become a point of contention. Ingram Micro retains the right to wipe corporate data from a personal device. Conner had expected the legal department to push for more visibility into a BYOD smartphone but found the opposite to be true--legal didn't want the liability that comes with seeing personal data.

"Personal data to legal is like toxic waste, they don't want to touch it," Conner says.

Nevertheless, laws around privacy vary from country to country. In Europe, for instance, privacy issues are paramount and there are a lot of restrictions around it. In Asia, there isn't really an expectation of privacy, says Stanley Li, CEO of San Francisco-based Netswitch. (Li believes the United States can .)