Microsoft has announced that Hohm will cease to exist after May 31, 2012. In a post on the Microsoft Hohm blog, the company states that the service will be terminated due to slow adoption in the marketplace.
The service, despite receiving positive feedback from its users, never caught on as Microsoft had desired. Because of this, the service will terminated and instead the group will be "focusing [their] efforts on products and solutions more capable of supporting long-standing growth within this evolving market." Microsoft states on their blog:
Microsoft Hohm has helped demonstrate the critical role of information in helping people and organizations improve how energy is generated, distributed and ultimately consumed. 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 transportations systems.
This closure comes not long after Google announced that they were shutting down Google Power Meter. The closure of both these products signifies that the market may not be ready yet for their visions of proper power management.
According to the FAQ posted by Microsoft, there will be not be other alternatives to the platform and at this time they are not recommending another solution for the service previously provided by Hohm.
Microsoft is not abandoning their green ways of thinking entirely. The blog states that "together with our partners, we will continue to develop technologies that help people and organizations reduce their impact on the environment". Microsoft will continue to look for ways to save energy across their products but at this time, Hohm does not fit their future portfolio.
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