I have not "played" with XenServer at all. If you do go with ESXi you could always look at Kaviza's virtual appliance which is now owned by Citrix. I'm not sure of the cost, but once you add multiple hosts into Kaviza's grid, it controls the load balancing without the need of vCenter.
Just a...
I'd like to see if anyone else is using, or has demo'd, this hardware as well. I work for a small private college in Ohio.
I have a 60 VM demo unit sitting behind me. I've already setup the VDI portion of it. I have a meeting scheduled with their engineers to setup the PXE server and Citrix...
I am pretty sure that due to the snafu that was Windows Vista, when Microsoft shipped Windows 7 (might only be Enterprise version) that you are permitted to run 1 instance of XP in MS Virtual PC. That's about all you're going to get for "free" from MS.
Even in big boy corporate land, if you...