difference between @Component and @Configuration in Spring 3

Question

I came across two annotations provided by Spring 3 (@Component and @Configuration) I am a bit confused between these.
Here is what I read about @Component

Answer 1

From Book Pro Spring Integration

@Configuration classes are just like regular @Components classes, except that methods annotated with @Bean are used to factory beans. Note that a @Component with @Bean annotated methods works the same way, except that scopes are not respected and the @Bean methods are re-invoked (no caching in play), so @Configuration is preferred, even though it requires CGLIB