Well, Not quite understanding what the guest speaker was saying when it came to applications like Microsoft Word or Excel.

Young lady reporter asked , "What if you couldn't open a Word or Excel program what would you do?"adding such needs for using Outlook and Internet explorer...

I've not personally ran into problems transferring Powerpoint, Word or even Excel tables to either Staroffice or Openoffice.

The guest speaker referred to emulators as a possibility.
My experience has lead me only to use emulators for games or video but not word processing or business apps...

I've never personally looked at a Linux or Unix computer to be inferior to a Windows based business applications. I find the windows Office Suite starting to show weaknesses in the bang for the buck.

Agreed. OOo does all I need it to do when it comes to spreadsheets and presentations. As far as word processing goes, its LyX all the way, and before that it was LaTeX...call me old fashioned but it works.

I use pLaTeX to type my reports and OO to do other less important paperworks. But one thing that is bad about WYSIWYG word processor is that you will be distracted in the way your document look. So I prefer to use pLaTeX in which you can concentrate more on the contents.