Anyone know the history of long-term reliance on proprietary technologies? I.e., how often does it actually work out for the adopters? Are their licensing / e

Anyone know the history of long-term reliance on proprietary technologies? I.e., how often does it actually work out for the adopters? Are their licensing / escrow schemes the meant to mitigate the risks from the original supplier going out of business? How often do those schemes pay off?