For those that may not be familiar.

What is Cisco Call Manager? It is the software-based call-processing component of the Cisco IP telephony solution. The software extends enterprise telephony features and functions to packet telephony network devices such as IP phones, media processing devices, voice-over-IP (VoIP) gateways, and multimedia applications.

Story continues... 

Currently Cisco Call Manager runs on a Microsoft OS, either through a dedicated appliance from Cisco or as software installed on a "Cisco Approved" server available from major manufacturer’s (Compaq, Dell, HP). Call Manager currently sits at version 4.1.

Reliable sources in the "Cisco loop" say that the next major release version 5 will be running on a "crippled" version of Red Hat Linux presumably thought to be available only as a dedicated appliance. The time frame that I was given was this could happen by the end of the year 2006.

One of the thoughts that come to mind, among others, is how will the current Active Directory integration take place? Will there be a software bridge component that Cisco will use?

Without this being confirmed by Cisco themselves, this is what may be considered heavy speculation. Nonetheless it is interesting to see where the possible future for Cisco's Call Manager may be going.