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 per cent of the vote to Schneider Electric’s 48 per cent.

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

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

Here’s a look at the full results:

Transformation

Pax8, 56 per cent vs IBM, 44 per cent

CrowdStrike, 52 per cent vs Schneider Electric, 48 per cent

HPE, 73 per cent vs ThreatLocker, 27 per cent

Google Cloud, 46 per cent vs AMD, 54 per cent

Acceleration

Ingram Micro, 71 per cent vs Everpure, 29 per cent

Palo Alto Networks, 17 per cent vs Cloudflare, 83 per cent

Amazon Web Services, 62 per cent vs Eaton, 38 per cent

Lenovo, 64 per cent vs Nutanix, 36 per cent

Innovation

Microsoft, 78 per cent vs Acer, 22 per cent

HP Inc, 40 per cent vs Sophos, 60 per cent

TD SYNNEX, 62 per cent vs WatchGuard, 38 per cent

Fortinet, 45 per cent vs Intel, 55 per cent

Evolution

Arctic Wolf, 54 per cent vs NetApp, 46 per cent

Dell Technologies, 75 per cent vs Alibaba Cloud, 25 per cent

Cisco, 63 per cent vs CyberPower, 37 per cent

Nvidia, 61 per cent vs OpenText Cybersecurity, 39 per cent

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 3pm BST on Thursday 2 July. Cast your votes at CRN.com/channelcup to choose your champion!

This article originally appeared on CRN UK sister website CRN.