This describes solutions which depend upon technology particular to a certain vendor or entity. Usually there is no standards process or consortia of vendors who are adopting a technology described as 'proprietary', although there might be in the future if the vendor's product gains a sufficient market share. The appropriateness for implementation of proprietary solutions should be judged by the current and projected market share of the vendor. Microsoft is a good example of a vendor of proprietary solutions. Because of the significance and growth of their market share, there is not, generally speaking, significant risk in adopting their solutions.
Standards boards solicit entries into the standards process from the technical public.
Their entries must be in the template form of an RFC as supplied by the standards board. Standards boards normally collaborate. This is a formalized process which was implemented in 1969 and has been refined and followed ever since. Standards track documents usually make it all the way through the process to become standards. Std 1 .