It's easy to take for granted that the electronic devices that run our world are going to work -- with a click or press of a button or turn of a key, we start our cars, turn on our televisions and flip on our cell phones.

	Martha Rial, Post-Gazette TimeSys Vice President Al Feczko, left, Executive Vice President Michel Genard and Chief Technology Officer Manas Saksena, seated, discuss one of the Downtown firm's products. Click photo for larger image.

What causes these indispensable tools to work isn't all that interesting to most of us, save those rare times when they don't work. We click, touch or turn, and the power comes on. End of story.

But what may be boring to most of us has fascinated the folks at Downtown-based TimeSys Corp. for nearly a decade.

Almost since its founding in 1996, TimeSys has built its business around what that the rest of us don't think about -- the small computer operating systems that are the "brains" behind gadgets we use everyday, be they cell phones, Palm handheld computers or even our highly computerized cars. It makes and sells the tools that help the software developers build the embedded computers for electronic devices.

The 45-employee firm stumbled around a bit before settling on this strategy. Initially, it sold testing tools for software developers and later sold entire operating systems for the embedded computers. The operating systems were based on Java software and the superhot computer code Linux -- the free or "open source" software that is available to anyone who wants to download it.

But shortly after he was brought in three years ago to run the business, TimeSys President and Chief Executive Officer Larry Weidman realized the soaring popularity of Linux offering a different and potentially more lucrative opportunity.

Instead of competing with other vendors selling entire ready-to-use Linux-based systems, he decided TimeSys should create tools software developers could use to custom-design their own operating systems, using Linux code. "Our customers told us what they wanted," Weidman said.

The shift in the firm's business model, in the works over the past 18 months, required TimeSys' lead investor to go along. It wasn't much of an issue.

Martha Rial, Post-Gazette TimeSys President and CEO Larry Weidman Click photo for larger image.

Joel Adams, along with Palo Alto, Calif., computer titan Sun Microsystems, Downtown-based Hillman Co. and New York-based giant Philips Electronics, had pumped $15.5 million into TimeSys in 2002 and brought in Weidman to review the firm's business plan.

"We could've built a nice business with our first strategy," Adams said. But, he noted, "There are several-hundred-thousand software developers out there" who were missing the tools that would "enable them to create their own operating systems." It's that market that TimeSys is now targeting.

Adams, of Sewickley-based Adams Capital Management, believed in the new strategy so much that a year after bringing in Weidman, he, Hillman and Philips put an additional $8 million into the firm. This week, the trio injected $6 million more into TimeSys.

The show of money represents a vote of confidence in Weidman, a Linux veteran who with other partners sold their company, Squirrel Hill-based Hell's Kitchen Systems, to Raleigh, N.C.-based Linux software maker Red Hat for $90 million in 2000. "He's an experienced entrepreneur," Adams said of Weidman. "He knows the technology and the market."

TimeSys is still tiny compared with competitors offering Linux operating systems and design tools -- a factor that made its move to a niche piece of the Linux market a smart one, analysts said. Before, it would have been going up against much larger companies with much deeper pockets.

"A lot of companies had staked out their brands," said suburban Boston-based industry analyst Christopher Lanfear. "But this is a little less populated marketplace and is still really developing."

Weidman said that armed with cash, TimeSys is aiming to grow commercially and capture more customers across the United States as well as in Europe and Asia.

"The real challenge for us," said Weidman, "is the large companies that want to do software development for embedded computers themselves."

To help him, Weidman hired another tech and Linux veteran, Michel Genard, last month to head the company's four-person San Jose, Calif., office and build partnerships with Silicon Valley -- many of them semiconductor chip makers -- that can help TimeSys land more customers. "We need to be focused on reaching developers where they are," Weidman said.

"There is a lot of momentum [in Silicon Valley] in terms of target partners and customers," said Genard, who expects to grow the San Jose office to eight people within the next year.

Despite hundreds of customers and refilled coffers, TimeSys investor Adams said it was too early to think about whether the firm is headed toward an initial public offering -- or a buyout. "Exits come when they come," he said.