Aesthetically, Philips CFT North America's nine-month-old local research and development operation pales in comparison to the riverside grandeur of the Seagate Technology building that rose along the banks of the Allegheny in the Strip District three years ago.

Philips' sparse, stark space in a quiet, ordinary office building in Washington County doesn't have the sleek, futurist feel of the local R&D facility of Seagate, the California-based disk drive maker.

But looks aren't everything. As everyone in economic development knows, bricks and mortar are only a piece of the pie. What really matters is that Ton Peijnenburg, chief of the East Coast office of Philips Center for Industrial Technology, is here, hiring and open to ideas.

And though Philips' new four-man center is a far cry from Seagate's, which has 150 people, it is notable that another tech titan joined the ranks of Silicon Valley stalwarts Network Appliance and Intel in making this region an R&D outpost.

Observers believe that the ability to land high-tech firms known for their top-notch, degree-laden scientific talent and cutting-edge research will only aid the region's quest to become known as a haven for innovation.

It was just a few years ago that similar optimism was displayed when former Carnegie Mellon University professor Mark Kryder was handpicked from his longtime job running the school's famed Data Storage Systems Center to head Seagate's local research facility. According to lore, Seagate built the state-of-the-art six-story building because Kryder insisted on staying in his adopted hometown.

Since then, TiVo addicts need only look to the Strip District to find the folks responsible for their affliction. For five years, Kryder and his team of researchers at Seagate have made it their mission to find ways to pack as much information as possible on increasingly smaller disk drives -- about 10 of which Kryder expects to silently exist in American homes in the coming years.

If you have no idea how you will possibly find 10,000 songs to download onto your 40 gigabyte Apple iPod but want to die trying -- thank a Seagate-engineered disk drive.

Or perhaps you're dreaming of the day when you can record an entire week's worth of television on your digital video recorder.

That day is soon coming with the help of Kryder and his army of engineers and scientists dedicated to making it happen.

Consumer dreams aside, the serious work that staffers at Seagate and Philips are doing goes beyond fueling the frenzy for an increasingly tech-crazed world -- it represents significant strides for a region that is still struggling to reinvent itself.

Getting Seagate "was a real coup for Pittsburgh," said Christina Gabriel, Carnegie Mellon University's vice provost for corporate partnerships and technology development. These kinds of wins, she said, spawn a "virtuous" cycle of growth in the region. "Federal funding to a university can lead to tech and economic development ... and more tech and economic development," Gabriel said.

Before Seagate, there had not been many occasions when a large company had been lured to Pittsburgh just because of the talented minds, added CMU's Tim McNulty, special assistant to the provost, who served on then-Gov. Mark Schweiker's staff. "I always looked at Seagate as an important turning of the corner for the region," McNulty said.

Now it's Philips' turn, though on a much smaller scale.

Congressional financial support, according to Peijnenburg, was at least partially responsible for Philips' decision to set up an outpost in the region in August. His charge is to hire eight more people by the end of this year and begin sniffing around for the latest and best technologies.

The Netherland-based Philips, which develops and markets hardware in the consumer electronics, health care and information technology sectors, operates its primary research center in Eindoven, the Netherlands, with additional R&D hubs in San Jose, Calif.; Singapore; and Budapest.

The local workshop is meant to be the East Coast offshoot of the California operation, with a maiden project of designing and perfecting a mechanical part that renders semiconductor-making machines more precise.

Peijnenburg and his staff also will work on development projects with Philips' other East Coast business units, supplying them with ideas and applications developed from "mechatronics," which he describes as the fusion of mechanics and electronics.

Philips, with its focus on harnessing already developed technology to apply to their line of products, should be viewed as a potential customer and partner for local tech firms, according to David Ruppersberger, chief executive of the Technology Collaborative, a local economic development agency spawned from the merger of the Digital Greenhouse and the Robotics Foundry.

"These are potential customers of local technology that [through Philips] will be commercialized in a way that's hard for companies to do," Ruppersberger said.

"Part of our responsibility is to be aware of new technologies and the potential they have for Philips," added Peijnenburg.

Like Seagate before it, Philips' local office fancies itself as something of an international attraction magnet, too.

Peijnenburg, a native of the Netherlands, relocated to Mt. Lebanon last year from San Jose with his girlfriend. Another staffer settled near Houston with his wife and young child from their home in Holland.

Peijnenburg said the notorious Pittsburgh weather was not unlike his former home in a town outside Eindoven, but that it was the collegial spirit of the scientific and business communities that had been a selling point.

"The atmosphere in this area is very collaborative," he said. "We've been in touch with a large number of organizations, and all have been very open." .....As an example, Philips will be lending engineering expertise to CMU students and faculty preparing entries for this fall's Grand Challenge, a $2 million winner-take-all robot race across the Mojave Desert sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Kryder and Peijnenburg say that proximity to the universities -- the ideas and technologies that emerge and the talent developing it -- are why they are here.

The connection between the firms and the universities is symbiotic, they say.

Recruiting is made simpler by drawing upon the top engineers from nearby schools, and companies also get to keep their ears to the ground for the most innovative work.

"We are able to have a good look in the kitchen and see what's being developed," Peijnenburg said of Philips' ties to Penn State, the University of Pittsburgh and CMU. "There's a mutual benefit there." Hiring is key, added Kryder, whose own staff is comprised of Ph.D.s from 26 countries. "They have an incentive to work with us -- it's kind of an information-sharing relationship."

Both firms say they are frequently on campus, collaborating with researchers there. "Rich interaction with the universities," said Gabriel, "gives them ideas and gives us ideas. It translates into product development."

And ultimately, that's everyone's goal. For the universities and its researchers, it means funneling their discoveries into the marketplace and making a stronger case for more R&D dollars. For companies, there's profit potential. And for the region, it's high-quality jobs -- and a carrot to lure even more firms.

Still, Kryder is reluctant to label Pittsburgh a tech hub just yet. It has a way to go in building a solid cluster of thriving tech firms. "We don't yet have multiple companies with a strong, similar interest," he said.

Job creation is often regarded as the litmus test for any growing, vibrant industry. Recent statistics cited by CMU's Center for Economic Development show that typically higher paying tech jobs comprise 7 percent of the regional work force.

Local tech officials say they are optimistic that they can continue to grow the numbers if the region keeps recruiting firms such as Seagate and Philips.

"You won't see the actual job numbers for two or three years," said Ruppersberger. "The real bonanza is down the road."