Despite pulling the plug on Hohm, the company plans to still to look for ways IT can be used to cut power usage.

"Microsoft will continue to focus on developing products, solutions and partnership that span a wide spectrum of industries, such as power generation, distribution grids, buildings and [transportation] systems," the blog post reads. The company said it will continue to develop the PC energy monitoring software and the Smart Energy Reference Architecture (SERA) for utility companies.

The IDG News Service