In 2003, the arrival of Adcus Inc. was heralded as a example of Pittsburgh's ability to attract the big guns -- money-making tech firms with global customer lists and the promise to boost the local job count.

Four years later, Adcus, an offshoot of Korean semiconductor firm Advanced Digital Chips (Ad Chips), has quietly shuttered its Pine-based office. Its local chief, Fred Gohh, a successful veteran of the Pittsburgh's tech scene, could not be reached for comment.

The Rendell administration welcomed the young firm with a $1.3 million package of job creation tax credits, grants and loans in exchange for the expectation of 166 new jobs gained from introducing its Korean parent's technology, which made microprocessor chips found in consumer electronics faster, cheaper and more efficient.

Yet Adcus struggled to gain footing in the booming, competitive chip sector -- reconfiguring itself more than once to find a path to success.

In 2005, it paid $500,000 to fund a project with University of Pittsburgh professor Marlin Mickle to develop an inexpensive "smart tag" that small and medium-size retailers could use to track their merchandise. The retail industry has yet to embrace a single technology to replace the age-old barcode.

Adcus also joined forces with Oakmont-based gadget-maker Sima Electronics to engineer the technology and software behind the Hitch, which promised to make sharing music, videos and photos a cinch, eliminating the cumbersome computer as the middleman and clearing the way for iPods to communicate directly with one another.

Yet the Hitch wasn't the blockbuster it was expected to be -- and the company turned to a mobile karaoke machine that's popular in Korea but has yet to take off here.

The fate of Adcus' six employees -- four in Pittsburgh, one in Michigan and another in California -- is unclear.

But Dr. Gohh -- one of the brains behind Spinnaker Networks, a startup success that was sold in 2003 for $300 million to Silicon Valley's Network Appliance -- is on the short list for local startups in need of a chief with a lot of experience and wisdom.

Andy Norman left a tenured faculty position in upstate New York to return home to launch software firm Knosis LLC in 2002.

Earlier this week, he sold the assets of the struggling startup to its Point Breeze neighbor, SkyMark Inc. also a software developer.

The non-cash deal, in which Skymark acquired Knosis' assets and will pay royalties to its shareholders, will give Knosis' software products, Theseus and Argutech, a better chance in the marketplace, Dr. Norman said.

Knosis' products are based on research indicating that critical thinking skills are better attained by drawing diagrams of arguments rather than simply jotting down notes.

Launched in 1997 by Medrad founder Steve Heilman, Skymark's software aims to help professionals in the health care delivery and automotive sectors "get serious work done faster and better."

The two firms joined forces before, "We've been partners with Knosis since the get-go. We see an opportunity here that Knosis hasn't been able to exploit on its own," said SkyMark Chief Executive Officer Steve David, who lives down the street from Dr. Norman in Point Breeze.

"We believe it applies to anyone that has to think logically for a living," Mr. David said. Particularly, lawyers, students and reporters, he said, although the four-person firm is still considering exactly how it plans to market the new additions to their product line.

One possibility, Mr. David said, is linking up with Apangea Learning, the Downtown tutoring software firm to introduce "critical thinking" software to the school-age set.

With his brainchild now in the hands of Skymark, Dr. Norman said he's returned to teaching full time in the Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Arts and Sciences.

It looks like Repliqa, Mark Seremet's startup, soon will be decamping for New York state flush with cash from a group of investors there after struggling to find funding on the local front.

The Greensburg-based firm aims to tell online consumers what they want on the Web before they know they want it.

An extensive questionnaire helps Repliqa's technology get inside consumers' heads to tantalize them with choices they wouldn't or couldn't think of themselves.

If Repliqa seems a bit ahead of its time, Mr. Seremet counters that is the nature of the Internet. "I recently made an angel investment in Wallstrip.com, which we sold to CBS a few weeks ago," he said. "I came in based upon the people, the concept and my perception of the market. Had I waited until the whole thing was crystal clear I wouldn't have made any money.

"If there are any serious Pittsburgh angels interested in the Internet, I'd love to meet them."