M$ office/ word processor alternatives

If any is looking for an alternative to M$ office, Bean is a fast free alternative. I use it for .doc and .docx documents I receive because it is FAST (one bounce). A new version came out in January, which fixed a lot of bugs. I also use Pages and Open Office 3, but Bean is by far the fastest to open. Bean is only a word processor and not a full office suite.

http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html

However, Open Office is a full office suite that anyone accustom to M$ office will fill right at home with. The hospital I work at even installed the windows version of Open Office on all their computers. They rename the icons to match M$ ( word, excel...). I don't think anybody even noticed the change. There are a few adjustments is Open Office's settings that can improve its opening speed.

http://www.openoffice.org/

I like writing in Pages, but you have to export to .doc and import .doc, so it is an extra step if you are exchanging documents back and fort with someone else. Numbers is great though. Still, you have to buy iWork and the others are free.