Windows server, mac client, best communication method?

If I have an app running on a Windows PC that is listening for clients
on a named-pipe (CreateNamedPipe in Win32), is there any way for a Mac
client to connect to that pipe?  From what I can tell, named-pipes on
Windows and Mac are very different things, and are not compatible at
all.  In the Windows world I know they use special SMB packets, so I
imagine one could build an SMB packet in this format and send it over
TCP or whatever protocol you wanted, but I imagine that would require
a lot of work.

I could make my Windows app listen on a TCP/IP socket.... I'll
probably go that route, if I have to.