Mobile workers are becoming a trend, and not just in the IT industry. One of the major indications validating this market’s exponential growth is that several of the largest vendors are jumping on the same bandwagon, including mega-vendors such as IBM and SAP.

These two companies are targeting the same market, and are both eating their own dog food as a part of an effort to make the most out of a trend that has impacted their internal environments, and not just that of potential corporate clients.

Big Blue first revealed its bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy plans in 2011, when it set a goal of rolling out support for workers’ own devices to about 200,000 employees by 2013. Over half of them already have the option of using their own phones at the office, and now IBM CIO Jeanette Horan is starting to think long-term. Sometime in the future the company’s entire global staff of nearly half a million and adoption rates are showing promise.

So far, about 120,000 users are accessing IBM’s network through mobile devices, and of that total, 80,000 are supplying the device and paying the monthly service fees, according to IBM spokesman Tim O’Malley.  The remaining 40,000 are using smartphones issued by IBM. The company has an “aggressive” projection for growth for this year, although a specific figure wasn’t available, O’Malley said.

The company is growing a BYOD portfolio to realize its plans, as well as that of its clients, via intiatives that include in-house R&D and acquisitions.

At the same time, the workers at SAP’s Australian outlet are also discovering the advantages of using smartphones to conduct their business. Just like IBM, the German BI software maker has BYOD offerings of its own, some of which helped the office down under to trim operating costs.