Simplification and unification of management is something that everyone is looking for. Since Group Policy has been become the standard to manage the (static parts) of larger environments, it makes perfect sense that Citrix is looking to integrate their settings into Group Policy as well. The huge adaptation of Group Policy is sure to grow even larger with the coming of Group Policy Preferences in Windows Server 2008.

Citrix has already put some decent thought and effort into the Group Policy integration that Juliano Maldaner is talking about. There will of course be distinct differences between the servers settings and the user settings. Juliano also (re)assures us that this Group Policy integration of Presentation Server will not require a schema update. Not all configuration will be done via Active Directory; the addition of users to applications and Citrix administrators will continue to be managed through the (multitude) of Citrix Management consoles. 

A cool feature is that Citrix is planning on delivering some very fine grained filtering to the Presentation Server Group Policy extensions: "Presentation Server Group Policy extension will improve GPO filtering capabilities to include all filters existing on CPS 4.5 session policies - including SmartAccess. These filters will only apply to the Citrix part of the GPO, platform configuration will apply regardless of the filter result. The Citrix policies within GPOs will also allow filtering on a per-setting level - native Group Policy only allow filtering per-policy level. Some Presentation Server features require complex filtered settings, for example: proximity printing based on client IP address. This feature will allow the configuration of such policies within a single GPO."

I'm sure that Julio is mainly talking about Windows Server 2003 when he says "active Group Policy only allow filtering per-policy level" because Windows Server 2008 Group Policy preferences introduce very advanced filtering (probably even more advanced than Citrix' current filters).

Read more on Presentation Server Group Policy extensions.