Bochs runs far too slowly to be useful for major apps because it emulates the whole PC (video, sound etc) rather than just the processor.
Wine/VMware won't work because they don't emulate a x86, just provide compatible APIs or separated boxes for other OSs to run in.
OpenOfiice and KOffice both work fine on the A1 under Linux. The only bit of MSOffice you might miss is Access. You can convert the databases to run under MySQL etc, but there aren't any mature GUI frontends that will easily replicate any Access reports.
If you already have graphics cards/ram etc and the A1 to hand, then stick them in and see what works. A few updates over the last 3-4 months have improved ram compatibility to a good level.
