That's exactly what Works is: A gimped Office. Works is also a name in the past already, substituted by a dumbed down Office-version called "Office Starter".
If time isn't an issue and you don't want to get Office yet you could always wait till you get the laptop and try and see how things work. Just load a few of your most complex spreadsheets and try to break it, save and load it again, etc... Remember to keep backups. If Works doesn't cut it then Openoffice.org Calc, GNumeric, any other free alternative might do the job. I don't have much experience with Works, but I know for sure that OOO and GNumeric handle basic Excel spreadsheets just fine. I'd still be really surprised if either of them also handled to most complex-ones properly.
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