Nutanix Beats Kaseya, Veeam Ousts AWS In Channel Madness: Round 1 Results

Round 1 voting of the 2023 CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs saw some close matchups. Here’s how it all played out.

Round 1 voting in the 2023 CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs has closed, and the winners are crafting their game plans for their next match-ups.

While several channel chiefs came out strong to take early leads, two close contests came down to the buzzer. Here’s a look at Round 1 results and who’s moving on to the Solutions 16.

In the Infrastructure region, Nutanix’s Christian Goffi was able to hold off Kaseya’s Dan Tomaszewski, winning with 51 percent of the vote to Tomaszewski’s 49 percent.

The Cloud region saw a tough battle between Veeam’s Kevin Rooney and Amazon Web Services’ Ruba Borno. Rooney maintained a tight lead throughout the round, winning with 52 percent of the vote over Borno’s 48 percent.

After several lead changes, WatchGuard’s Michelle Welch was able to oust Cato Networks’ Frank Rauch in the Security region. Welch won this one with 57 percent of the vote..

And in the Hardware region, 2022 Channel Madness Champion Scott Mann of Scale Computing took the first step toward defending his title, earning a robust victory with 84 percent of the vote over Dell’s Rola Dagher.

Here’s a look at the final scores.

Infrastructure

Dan Tomaszewski, Kaseya, 49 percent vs. Christian Goffi, Nutanix, 51 percent

Oliver Tuszik, Cisco Systems, 27 percent vs. Shannon Sbar, Schneider Electric, 73 percent

David Weeks, N-able, 29 percent vs. Jenni Flinders, NetApp, 71 percent

Steve Loeb, Eaton, 43 percent vs. Phil Soper, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, 57 percent

Hardware

Scott Mann, Scale Computing, 84 percent vs. Rola Dagher, Dell Technologies, 16 percent

Scott Lannum, HP Inc., 60 percent vs. Kimberly King, Hitachi Vantara, 40 percent

Donna Grothjan, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, 63 percent vs. Jason Kimrey, Intel, 37 percent

James Robbins, Dynabook Americas, 70 percent vs. Rob Cato, Lenovo, 30 percent

Cloud

Ruba Borno, Amazon Web Services, 48 percent vs. Kevin Rooney, Veeam Software, 52 percent

Kevin Ichhpurani, Google Cloud, 30 percent vs. Stefanie Chiras, Red Hat, 70 percent

Jonathan McCormick, Intermedia, 37 percent vs. Nina Harding, Microsoft, 63 percent

Kate Woolley, IBM, 37 percent vs. Ricky Cooper, VMware, 63 percent

Security

Michael Rogers, CrowdStrike, 41 percent vs. Bob Skelley, Arctic Wolf, 59 percent

Frank Rauch, Cato Networks, 43 percent vs. Michelle Welch, WatchGuard Technologies, 57 percent

Lori Cornmesser, Deepwatch, 63 percent vs. Ken Marks, SentinelOne, 37 percent

Tom Evans, Palo Alto Networks, 59 percent vs. Kendra Krause, Sophos, 41 percent

Looking ahead to the Solutions 16, here are the face-offs in Round 2.

In the Infrastructure region, Nutanix’s Christian Goffi will go head-to-head with Schneider Electric’s Shannon Sbar, while NetApp’s Jenni Flinders will face HPE’s Phil Soper.

In the Hardware region, Scale Computing’s Scott Mann will take on HP Inc.’s Scott Lannum, while HPE/Aruba’s Donna Grothjan will match up against James Robbins of Dynabook Americas.

The Cloud region will see Veeam Software’s Kevin Rooney pitted against Red Hat’s Stefanie Chiras, while Microsoft’s Nina Harding challenges VMware’s Ricky Cooper.

In the Security region, Arctic Wolf’s Bob Skelley will go up against WatchGuard’s Michelle Welch, while Deepwatch’s Lori Cornmesser will test the mettle of Palo Alto Networks’ Tom Evans.

Voting in Round 2 opens at 10:00 AM ET on Thursday, March 23 and will remain open until Tuesday, March 28 at noon ET. Visit CRN.com/madness to cast your votes and choose your chief!