This is part 1 of a 2 part series. Feeling like Java EE has gotten too complicated? You are not alone! The answer to simplifying Java enterprise application development is Spring. Spring is a lightweight open source application framework that utilizes simple plain old Java objects (JavaBeans) to construct applications that previously were only possible with technologies like EJB and mounds of JDBC code. In addition to many other modules, Spring provides a full-featured Model View Controller framework for building Web applications. In addition to introducing Spring, this talk examines Spring and how it compares to other notable Java MVC frameworks like Struts, Java Server Faces and Tapestry.