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There are years that people are sad to see go and there are others that they are all too happy to say goodbye to. So, which one was 2023? We asked a few channel partners and vendors to give us their view of the past 12 months. Mark Forster, CTO at Softcat, can safely be described as one of those who sits in the positive camp – as far as he’s concerned, this was definitely not an annus horribilis for Softcat. “2023 has been good to Softcat and our customers,” he says. “Our breadth and depth of offering and expertise has meant we have been able to assist our customers across an increasingly converging technology stack.” He adds that while artificial intelligence (AI) will “probably win the award for column inches” as the channel jostles for position and relevance, we have “yet to see the real commercial impact in 2023”. Forster’s positivity about 2023 is at odds with the perception most people had coming into the year. As David Watts, senior vice-president and regional managing director of UK and Ireland at TD Synnex, notes: “I ...