Big electronics manufacturers are expanding assembly of high-end telecommunications, computer, and medical equipment in Mexico and some parts of the U.S. for greater proximity to corporate buyers.

Even today, Mr Ellison points out, more Oracle databases run on Solaris and Sun's high-end servers than on any other computer system.

It has a market share of over 20%, has broken into the market for high-end server chips, and has persuaded Dell, a big computer-maker which used to have an Intel-only policy, to use its chips.