Wine is an acronym that stands for "Wine is not an
emulator" and it permits a great many Windows programs
(most) to run at around native speed under Linux. Not
every program will work or work perfectly but I've
tried quite a few as there are some special applications
I need, and never had a problem getting them to run
in Ubuntu. (Though, I'm still trying to get some
to run on Edubuntu LTSP clients.)