Accessing objects created within a windows service

Hi All, I need to create a windows service which will expose several data collection objects to another application. Creating the service should be ok, but the problem I have is how to access these data collection objects from the other application. Apart from being able to start & stop the service, the only other functionality I have found is the ability to send custom commands to the service, which still do not allow me to return any values. Is there any way of returning a value/object from a service? Or should I be looking at running some sort of distributed application within the windows service, i.e. using .Net Remoting? I'm new to C# and have come from a Java background, so I have virtually no idea what COM, COM+ and DCOM are - will any of these be of use in solving my problem? Please help me!! :)