Channel Madness Is Back

Hello, and welcome back to CRN Weekly, where we highlight the latest news and insights impacting the channel and technology industry over the past week.

In this edition, we take a look at some of the channel chiefs competing for the 2023 Channel Madness title, the IT bets Presidio's CEO is making this year, container tools preferred by enterprises and SMBs in 2023 and more.

Never miss a story: Sign up here to receive CRN's daily newsletter in your inbox.

Voting Is Open In CRN's Ninth Annual Channel Madness: Support Your Favorite Chief

The 2023 CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs kicked off yesterday, pitting some of the channel's most influential executives against each other in head-to-head battles where CRN readers vote to determine the victors.

The 2022 Channel Madness Champion, Scale Computing 's Scott Mann , is back this year, along with some fan favorites, including Cato Networks ' Frank Rauch , Veeam Software 's Kevin Rooney , and 英特尔 's Jason Kimrey .

Channel Madness newcomers include Kaseya 's Dan Tomasewski ( Dan T. ), N-able 's David Weeks , 红帽 's Stefanie Chiras and Palo Alto Networks ' Tom Evans .

Who do you think will win this year?

You can vote in Round 1 now, so make sure you support your favorite chief!

And there's still time to fill out your bracket for a chance to win a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga laptop, courtesy of 联想 . Enter yours in our contest by 2 p.m. EDT today.

Presidio CEO On AWS, Cisco, M&A And Biggest IT Bets

Bob Cagnazzi , CEO of Presidio , has huge growth plans in store for the $5.4 billion solution provider superstar in 2023 and beyond, backed by a large backlog thanks to its innovative services strategy and tight partnerships with the likes of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Cisco.

In an interview with CRN, Cagnazzi discussed AWS, Cisco, potential mergers and acquisitions (M&A) this year, as well as Presidio's go-to-market strategy and vision to make the company a leader in digital transformation.

Container Face-Off: Docker Vs. AWS ECS Vs. Azure Vs. Kubernetes

Enterprises and SMBs are selecting Amazon Web Services (AWS) ECS and EKS, Docker, Inc , Azure Kubernetes Services and self-implemented Kubernetes as their container tools of choice, according to a new report by Flexera that surveyed 750 organizations.

"Kubernetes use continues to dominate [the container industry], whether self-implemented or via a cloud provider service," Flexera said in its 2023 State of the Cloud Report.

However, there are some differences between SMBs, who prefer Docker, and enterprises, who are currently picking AWS ECS and EKS as their container solution.

In addition to the report's results on container usage in 2023, we take a look at the top container-related challenges businesses face in today's market.

Elsewhere From CRN

Here are some of CRN's other best-read stories over the past week:

• Major IT Companies That Did Business With SVB (Read)
• Latest Microsoft Layoff Wave Hits Supply Chain, Cloud, IoT Employees (Read)
• 30 Notable IT Executive Moves: February 2023 (Read)
• 5 New ‘Bold’ Google Cloud, Workspace AI Offers: Thomas Kurian (Read)
• Optiv Doubles Down On Federal Business With Acquisition Of Optiv + ClearShark (Read)

For breaking news from CRN, sign up here to be notified ASAP.