If you need to READ a serial port, I'd suggest using Kiwi Harvester, which forwards data received from the serial port onto a SysLog server.

For anything more complex, (Man - I'm about to show my antiquity...) you could use a scriptable Serial-port communication program, like Procomm Plus . I'm not sure if current Telnet clients like Putty or Terra Term Pro support the scripting you seem to need - but they are worth investigating, at NoNags.com.

"When you are faced with a dilemma, might as well make dilemmanade. "