Part of the reason that Apple found more success after 1998 was the “consumerization of technology” the end user was the buyer and not the corporate IT department. The UX is a sales driver for the buyer. In the corporate world, the buyer and the user are not the same person.

Apple never had much corporate presence, outside publishing and graphics.

That's what I just said....

But the iPhone has a major presence in corporate America, has first class support for Exchange servers and their are plenty of MDM solutions deployed for iDevices.

Ok, I didn't get that initially.

Actually, this suggests that there was a relatively brief period, probably about 1986 - 1996, where corporate IT buys dominated personal computing.

Earlier, and it was hobbyist markets (and corps used mainframes and minis). Later and it was mass, then mobile, markets.

Not that corp purchasing doesn't remain large, and influential. But it's no longer hegemonic.

But yes, corporate buys present a principle-agent problem, especially as regards UI/UX.