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if you the HP ProLiant MicroServer is available in your area, with cashback in the UK, this works out, at £104 per server! (which runs ESXi 4.1 or ESXi 5.0!) with 8GB RAM, and you can build a very large cluster with losts of boxes!
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if you the HP ProLiant MicroServer is available in your area, with cashback in the UK, this works out, at £104 per server! (which runs ESXi 4.1 or ESXi 5.0!) with 8GB RAM, and you can build a very large cluster with losts of boxes!

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and the HP ProLiant MicroServer only runs at 64 Watts of electricity! (unlike some desktops!)
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and the HP ProLiant MicroServer only runs at 64 Watts of electricity! (unlike some desktops!)

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I am considering setting up a home lab using vmware where I can run several servers 2008 R2 and Exchange servers. I was wondering if it is possible to run this on a laptop or do I need to purchase a new desktop computer? Also which VMware product would be best to use?
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I am considering setting up a home lab using vmware where I can run several servers 2008 R2 and Exchange servers. I was wondering if it is possible to run this on a laptop or do I need to purchase a new desktop computer? Also which VMware product would be best to use?

VMware home lab

VMware, a software company founded in 1998,  was one of the first commercially successful companies to offer x86 virtualization. The storage company EMC purchased VMware in 1994. Dell Technologies acquired EMC in 2016. VMware’s parent company is now Dell Technologies.

VMware has many software products that run on desktops, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS, which allows the virtualizing of the x86 architecture.  Its enterprise software hypervisor for servers, VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi), is a bare-metal hypervisor that runs directly on the server hardware and does not require an additional underlying operating system.

VMware

Virtualization is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, including (but not limited to) a virtual computer hardware platform, operating system (OS), storage device, or computer network resources. Virtualization is usually the creation of a system that executes separate from the underlying hardware resources, or the creation of an entire desktop for systems located elsewhere, similar to thin clients.