Jason Perlow and I had the pleasure of interviewing Kickfire CEO Bruce Armstrong for the May 22nd episode of Frugal Friday to discuss the Kickfire appliance. The Kickfire appliance is a Linux-based, rack-mountable, database appliance tuned for Data Warehousing.

Here's the real scoop: Starting at a mere $32,000 US, you get the horsepower performance of a system (actually a set of systems) costing in the $400,000 range. And it consumes very little power while saving you a bundle of cash while performing like big iron.

How do they do it?

Linux, MySQL Enterprise DB and a SQL chip. Read all about it here.

So, now you're asking (like we did), "What about your future as an Oracle competitor now that Oracle owns MySQL?"

Armstrong stated that they (Kickfire) have discussed this change among themselves and with Monty Widenius, creator of MySQL, about his new project the Open Database Alliance (fka MariaDB). As Armstrong sees it, Kickfire has options--lots of options and all of them smell like success. To get all the information about Kickfire's options, listen to the live podcast.

The Kickfire appliance is an amazing machine that deserves a look if you're into data warehousing or need super speed for your queries of any kind. Remember this: 10% of the price, 10% of the power consumption, 100% of the performance of any other data warehousing solution.

That's the ultimate Linux device for which we've been searching. Innovative, creative, inexpensive, powerful. I just don't know if it gets any better than that.

Oh, wait, it just did.

Kickfire is having a contest where you can win a Kickfire appliance. You'll have to compete with me, of course, and others who want to win the ultimate Linux device but we'll all have fun doing it.

What do you think of the Kickfire appliance? Also let me know if you're going to enter the contest.