CrowdStrike, Cloudflare, Intel Advance: Round 1 Results

Round 1 of the first-ever CRN Global Channel Cup Tournament is in the books. Here’s a look at who is advancing to the Round of 16.

Round 1 of the first-ever 2026 Global Channel Cup Tournament included a number of hard-fought matches, but only 16 can advance. Here’s a look at the results and who is moving on to the next round.

The closest matchup of the round turned out to be in the Transformation region, where CrowdStrike and Schneider Electric traded shots evenly throughout the round, but it was CrowdStrike that finished strongest with 52 percent of the vote to Schneider Electric’s 48 percent.

In the Acceleration region, Cloudflare pulled far ahead of rival Palo Alto Networks to end with 83 percent of the vote to Palo Alto Networks’ 17 percent.

In the Innovation region, Intel was able to secure 55 percent of the votes to hold off Fortinet with 45 percent, while in the Evolution region, Arctic Wolf looked solid with 54 percent to NetApp’s 46 percent.

Here’s a look at the full results:

Transformation

Pax8, 56 percent vs. IBM, 44 percent

CrowdStrike, 52 percent vs. Schneider Electric, 48 percent

HPE, 73 percent vs. ThreatLocker, 27 percent

Google Cloud, 46 percent vs. AMD, 54 percent

Acceleration

Ingram Micro, 71 percent vs. Everpure, 29 percent

Palo Alto Networks, 17 percent vs. Cloudflare, 83 percent

Amazon Web Services, 62 percent vs. Eaton, 38 percent

Lenovo, 64 percent vs. Nutanix, 36 percent

Innovation

Microsoft, 78 percent vs. Acer, 22 percent

HP Inc., 40 percent vs. Sophos, 60 percent

TD Synnex, 62 percent vs. WatchGuard, 38 percent

Fortinet, 45 percent vs. Intel, 55 percent

Evolution

Arctic Wolf, 54 percent vs. NetApp, 46 percent

Dell Technologies, 75 percent vs. Alibaba Cloud, 25 percent

Cisco, 63 percent vs. CyberPower, 37 percent

Nvidia, 61 percent vs. OpenText Cybersecurity, 39 percent

That brings us to our Round of 16 Matchups, which kick off tomorrow:

Transformation

Pax8 vs. CrowdStrike

HPE vs. AMD

Acceleration

Ingram Micro vs. Cloudflare

Amazon Web Services vs. Lenovo

Innovation

Microsoft vs. Sophos

TD Synnex vs. Intel

Evolution

Arctic Wolf vs. Dell Technologies

Cisco vs. Nvidia

Voting in Round 2 opens at 10:00 AM EDT (UTC -4) on Thursday, July 2. Cast your votes at CRN.com/channelcup to choose your champion!