2017 Channel Madness Round 1 Results So Far: Cloud Battle Brewing

We're more than halfway through the voting in Round 1 of the 2017 CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs. Let's take a look at the scores so far.

In the Infrastructure region, F5's David Helfer in his tournament debut is out in front of Shannon Sbar of APC by Schneider Electric by a score of 64 percent to 36 percent.

In her quest to best last year's performance, Cisco's Wendy Bahr is out to a comfortable lead over Commvault's Ralph Nimergood, 58 percent to 42 percent.

Extreme's Bob Gault is leading Terry Richardson of Hewlett Packard Enterprise 57 percent to 43 percent, while Eaton's Curtiz Gangi is besting HPE's Scott Dunsire 54 percent to 46 percent.

In the Hardware region, 2016 Champion Sandra Glaser Cheekof Brocade Ruckus has come out strong against NetApp's Bill Lipsin, leading 58 percent to 42 percent.

Dell EMC's John Byrne is ahead of Polycom's Nick Tidd 60 percent to 40 percent, while Lenovo's Sammy Kinlaw is looking good against Aruba's Donna Grothjan, 84 percent to 16 percent.

And HP's Stephanie Dismore is ahead of tournament newcomer Greg Taylor of Samsung, 56 percent to 44 percent.

In the Cloud region, a fierce battle is waging between Datto's Rob Rae and Intermedia's Eric Martorano, with Rae holding a slim 52 percent to 48 percent lead. This is currently the tightest race in the tournament.

Elsewhere in the region, 2016 finalist Brooks McCorcle of AT&T is ahead of Carbonite's Jon Whitlock, 85 percent to 15 percent. Whitlock was a last-minute replacement for Jessica Couto, who left Carbonite last week.

VMware's Frank Rauch is turning in a strong performance, leading Google's Bertrand Yansouni 74 percent to 26 percent.

And Verizon's Janet Schijns is up over tournament newcomer David Powell of LogicMonitor, 82 percent to 18 percent.

Fierce rivalries are raging in the Software region, where Microsoft's Gavriella Schuster is ahead of Red Hat's Mark Enzweiler 55 percent to 45 percent.

Kendra Krause of Sophos is bringing the heat against Splunk's Brooke Cunningham, 60 percent to 40 percent.

Salesforce's Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh is going strong against SonicWall's Steve Pataky 58 percent to 42 percent.

And Fortinet's Joe Sykora is leading Oracle's Bill Swales 56 percent to 44 percent.

So that's where things sit four days into Channel Madness. Voting in Round 1 remains open until noon ET on Wednesday, March 22. Visit crn.com/madness to cast your votes and choose your chief!