@hansw QNX is a Canadian company and did excellent work -- they specialized in time critical processing, and optimized for efficiency and speed.
Sadly they never made it big. I think Research in Motion, another Canadian icon and pioneer (RIM, now known by their most famous product, Blackberry Inc.), RIM did use it for their Playbook tablet OS.
A high quality product also not commercially successful.
I love fast and compact software. Used Os/2 and was a big supporter.
Then NT4 Workstation, which I still sadly miss.
So many good things disappeared over the years. Digital Equipment Corp. Compaq. and many others.