Regarding WMI over HTTP, take a look at WinRM, which appears to be an implementation of WS-Management for XP, Win2003, Win2008, and Vista. This defines a way to access Common Information Model (CIM) information over HTTP(S) (SOAP). CIM is defined by the DMTF and WMI is Microsoft's implementation of CIM.
If I read the alphabet soup correctly, you should be able to use SOAP from Linux to access WinRM (WS-Management) on a Windows machine, thus providing access to WMI (as long as WinRM is installed, running, and not firewalled).
Whether running such a thing on a corporate network will be allowed by IT/Security is another matter entierely: any open port can be a security risk and one which allows command, control, and configuration by design can be quite a hole. Certificates, IPSec, and scoped firewall rules are your friend!
Note that I have no direct experience using WS-Management, nor WinRM, so YMMV.