Channel Madness Round 2: Lenovo’s Cato, VMware’s Flinders Surge Ahead In Weekend Voting

With 24 hours left in Round 2 of the 2019 CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs, the Solutions 16 are making their final stands to try to advance to the Enterprise 8.

The Hardware region is hosting one of the most closely watched matchups of the tournament so far, where Rob Cato of Lenovo has turned the tables on Lexmark's Sammy Kinlaw, picking up steam in weekend voting and surging ahead with 52 percent of the vote to Kinlaw's 48 percent. Kinlaw formerly served as a channel chief at Lenovo and was succeeded by Cato last April.

A lead change has also occurred in the Cloud region, where VMware's Jenni Flinders has upped her game and overtaken Google's Carolee Gearhart. Flinders is now ahead 58 percent to 42 percent.

In the Security region, last year's champion, McAfee's Ken McCray, has made up ground but still finds himself trailing FireEye's Chris Carter. Carter is leading 62 percent to 38 percent.

And in the Infrastructure region, NetApp's Jeff McCullough continues to look strong in his matchup against Shannon Sbar of APC by Schneider Electric, leading 76 percent to 24 percent.

Infrastructure

Jeff McCullough, NetApp 76 vs. Shannon Sbar, APC by Schneider Electric 24

Gordon Mackintosh, Extreme Networks 77 vs. Rob Rae, Datto 23

Hardware

Joyce Mullen, Dell EMC 77 vs. Stephanie Dismore, HP Inc. 23

Rob Cato, Lenovo 52 vs. Sammy Kinlaw, Lexmark 48

Cloud

Jenni Flinders, VMware 58 vs. Carolee Gearhart, Google 42

Kevin Rooney, Veeam 75 vs. Gavriella Schuster, Microsoft 25

Security

Ken McCray, McAfee 38 vs. Chris Carter, FireEye 62

Frank Rauch, Check Point Software Technologies 27 vs. Kendra Krause, Sophos 73

Voting in Round 2 of the CRN Channel Madness tournament remains open until noon ET on Tuesday, March 26. Visit CRN.com/madness to cast your votes and choose your chief!