There are a other ApplicationContext implementations out there
First there are
ClassPathXmlApplicationContext
FileSystemXmlApplicationContext
XmlWebApplicationContext
etc.
Here is a link to the javadoc for ApplicationContext, and you can see implementation classes
http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.0.x/javadoc-api/org/springframework/context/ApplicationContext.html
"AnnotationConfigApplicationContext,
AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext,
ClassPathXmlApplicationContext,
FileSystemXmlApplicationContext,
XmlPortletApplicationContext,
XmlWebApplicationContext"
Probably the more common of all of them that are used.
Mark