CRN Channel Madness: The Enterprise 8 Contest Is Heating Up

We're now 24 hours into voting for Round 3 of the 2016 CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs. While matchups in the Software and Infrastructure regions are quickly heading toward blowouts, the tight contests in the Hardware and Cloud regions are shaping up to be Channel Madness classics.

With voting closing tomorrow at noon ET, let's look at how the Enterprise 8 are faring.

We'll start in the Software region where the defending champion, Sophos' Mike Valentine, is still riding his Round 2 support wave, putting up a 77 percent to 23 percent lead over Microsoft's Phil Sorgen.

[2016 CRN Channel Madness: Round 2 Winners And Losers]

Sorgen will need some serious overnight support if he wants to prevent Valentine from making a second straight Field of Four appearance.

In the Infrastructure region, Extreme's Bob Gault is holding a comfortable 79 percent to 21 percent lead over Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Kerry Bailey. Gault is picking up right where he left off after tallying the most votes in the Solutions 16.

Bailey had a big Round 2 of his own, easily knocking off Nutanix's Chris Morgan. He'll need to quickly re-create that magic if he wants to get past Gault and into the Field of Four.

The Cloud region has seen the tightest contests of the tournament so far and that trend is continuing into the Enterprise 8. AT&T's Brooks McCorcle is clinging to a 52 percent to 48 percent lead over Datto's Rob Rae.

Both executives proved resilient in Round 2, surviving back-and-forth contests to make it into Round 3, but something will have to give as we move on to the Field of Four.

The Hardware portion of the Enterprise 8 is playing host to the battle of the Channel Madness newcomers: Lenovo's Sammy Kinlaw squaring off with Ruckus' Sandra Glaser Cheek. Kinlaw currently holds a 54 percent to 46 percent lead over Glaser Cheek.

Voting for the Enterprise 8 will remain open until Thursday, March 31, at noon ET.

Cast your Round 3 votes at CRN.com/madness.