The applications launchers are utilities that generally take place in Windows bar and allows to fast execute programs and other features.
Here is a list of the most recend and working on Windows OS:
8start (portable, customizable, skinnable, countdown, annotations)
Circle dock also this has an original shape
Sliderdock as above
Rocket Dock launcher in Mac OS X dock style
X Windows Dock as above
Launchy opensource, also for Linux, skin support, plugins etc…