Emulation vs Virtualization

[Doug Young]

Would someone please explain in simple english what the functional
differences are between emulation & virtualization are as far as being able
to run Windows applications under Unix / Linux in a "real world" (ie
commercial office) environment ??

For what its worth I'd prefer to use an open source unix (FreeBSD / OpenBSD)
rather than linux, however there are other issues (difficulty in getting
StarOffice / CUPS / etc running reliably) that may force the use of
something like Mandrake where at least StarOffice / CUPS do work properly.
I've installed both bochs & codeweaver wine in Mandrake (neither of which
are usable by other than hackers in FreeBSD/ OpenBSD) but haven't been able
to get any Windows applications to install let alone run.

Does anyone have experience with FreeMware / VmWare / plex86 / etc  ??  and
can recommend something that might do the job ??