(For what it's worth, my readout says it's v1.0.42 and says it's the Apple System Profiler Tool. The one we all know about, the one with a GUI, says it's v2.7.)
I can see this as being useful in two ways; you could easily redirect its output to a text file for inclusion in an e-mail message by typing AppleSystemProfiler > report.txt.
And this website seems to think that enterprising individuals could somehow script the harvesting of information from this readout for use in, for example, computer labs.

