2018 Channel Madness: Tight Races Underway In Hardware, Security

The CRN 2018 Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs is in full swing, as we're more than halfway through Round 1 voting. Here's a look at how voting in the matchups is shaking out.

In the Infrastructure region, Shannon Sbar of APC by Schneider Electric is out in front of Bob Gault of Extreme Networks, leading 61 percent to 39 percent.

Cisco's Wendy Bahr is out strong against Eaton's Curtiz Gangi, up 63 percent to 37 percent, while F5 Networks' David Helfer has a commanding lead over NetApp's Jeff McCullough, up 77 percent to 23 percent.

And in a matchup against two tournament newcomers, Juniper's Brian Rosenberg is leading Pure Storage's Andy Martin 65 percent to 35 percent.

In the Hardware region, there's a tight race brewing between HP's Stephanie Dismore and Lexmark's Sammy Kinlaw. Kinlaw currently has the edge, leading 53 percent to 47 percent.

In another close matchup between two tournament first-timers, Joyce Mullen of Dell EMC is ahead with 57 percent over Darren Cassidy of Xerox with 43 percent.

Donna Grothjan of Aruba is ahead of Samsung's Mike Coleman 65 percent to 35 percent, while Intel's Todd Garrigues is leading Polycom's Nick Tidd 65 percent to 35 percent.

An upset is brewing in the cloud region where tournament rookie Kevin Rooney of Veeam is out in front of Microsoft's Gavriella Schuster 57 percent to 43 percent. Schuster made it all the way to the semifinal round in last year's tournament.

Elsewhere in the region, Eric Martorano of Intermedia is playing with heart, leading Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh of Salesforce 74 percent to 26 percent.

Frank Rauch of VMware is leading handily against Terry Wise of Amazon Web Services 65 percent to 35 percent, and Brooke Cunningham of Splunk has found a game plan she likes, leading Bill Swales of Oracle 67 percent to 33 percent.

In the Security region, there's a nail biter underway between McAfee's Ken McCray and RSA's Faraz Siraj. Siraj is leading 51 percent to 49 percent.

Symantec's Keith Weatherford is sitting pretty against Didi Dayton of Cylance, up 67 percent to 33 percent.

Kendra Krause of Sophos is ahead of Fortinet's Jon Bove 63 percent to 37 percent, and SonicWall's Steve Pataky is ahead of Ron Myers of Palo Alto 60 percent to 40 percent.

Not happy with the results so far? Make sure your voice is heard! Voting for Round 1 remains open until noon ET on Wednesday, March 21. Visit crn.com/madness to cast your votes and choose your chief!