LaunchBar Commander is what is commonly referred to as an "Application Launcher"; it is typically docked to the side of your screen and lets you configure buttons and menus which will launch your favorites programs.

LaunchBar Commander has a slightly different focus than some other launch bar tools:

• It's designed for power users who value efficiency over eye candy - although you can choose some nice appearance skins for the program, if you are looking for a super fancy animated mac-style dock with dancing icons, LaunchBar Commander is not the tool for you (but see the help file for links to other freeware/shareware alternatives you might like).
• It's designed to store docking bar configurations in self-contained files - so you can back them up easily, move them to other computers, switch between configurations, etc.
• It emphasizes the use of highly configurable Menus rather than just buttons - you can build hierarchical menus of any depth and varying types.
• It has a very powerful tree configuration tool which supports copy and paste, drag and drop, easy temporary disabling, multiple configuration files, etc.