Bitwig == Ableton++, after Ableton management vetoed engineering's desire to do a major and much needed architectural rewrite. As I understand it, they didn't see how tearing down all the legacy code and building something more stable and modular would help them sell more licenses the next year. Hence, we have Bitwig.
I like it as one of the rare examples of engineers wanting to fix problems and create something great winning out over the desire for predictable annual returns.
I guess it was founded in 2009? (who am I to argue with wikipedia!), but wasn't "real" until 2013 or 2014. I know this because I was there, working our booth at NAMM, and chatting with the Bitwig devs about the architecture. :)
And yeah, it's worked out fine for Bitwig and Ableton. Though I'm still not that impressed with any Ableton release after 7.