asterisk users - May 2006 - Glueing apps and phones together

We have about 50 agents making outbound and receiving inbound calls via 
queues. All Agents have Cisco 7940 phones, using SIP (the app and the 
phones are on separate LANS).

I was wanting find a better way to glue our application (which runs on 
MS Terminal Server 2003) to our * system. At the moment we are using the 
Asterisk Manager and astmanproxy.

What I was thinking was using the new res_jabber module, a wildfire 
server and the ipworks jabber activex. Thus, * and our app can send a 
messages to each other via the wildfire server.

However, there is a little thought running through my mind about 
embedding a SIP activeX control into our app, and having * talk directly 
to the app. When our app receives or makes a call, it is automatically 
diverted / referred / transferred to the cisco phone.

I presume there are loads of people who have already achieved this type 
of glue, but was wondering if they would care to share ;)

Just looking for pointers, guidance or advice on the two methods.

TIA

Julian.