Big tin: IT infrastructure used by organisations to run their businesses.
So, I think this final sentence needs translation. For "Apple's business model", substitute "Apple's business model, which involves not caring much about the low-margin, high-grief corporate IT hardware business." And, for "contempt for its users", substitute "contempt for the people running corporate IT departments". (Remember, IT doesn't care about the people who type on the computers. It's the people who set up the computers who are the primary "users".)
I'm sure it really does suck to try and maintain Macs in a Windows-centric corporate environment. But it's not as if corporate IT has anyone but themselves to blame. They turned away from Apple in the early 1980s and have never really looked back until now. Apple has learned to survive without their business and now has no real incentive to become the next Microsoft. Somebody else needs to step up and do that.
Low-margin? I used to work at a large bank, and I recall Dell charged them some £25 for a plain USB optical mouse with just 2 buttons and a mouse-wheel. I'm sure many businesses could do with these kinds of margins.
Other questions to put this anecdote in perspective: Was that a list price or the result of a negotiation? What were the competing products in the UK at the time, and why would a bank choose Dell if those products where significantly cheaper?
There were plenty of competing products in the UK - I could have had a better mouse for cheaper by wandering down to PC World, down the road, and paying £10. But the corporate ordering process didn't allow me to get involved in that - all I could do was express the fact that I needed a mouse with a wheel.
Well, there you have it. If you are Dell and you secure that exclusive deal, you get to charge high margins on certain incidental products.
Of course, as has been pointed out by olefoo, to get a deal like that Dell probably had to give up a lot of margin on other products. And throw in support contracts, and expend a lot of sales time...
Huh?