Microsoft is shutting down its home energy tracking service Hohm. The service was one of Microsoft's attempts to combine cloud computing with the energy industry.

The news came a few days after Google said it plans to shut down its competing service PowerMeter.

"The feedback from customers and partners has remained encouraging throughout Microsoft Hohm’s beta period," Microsoft said in a Tuesday blog post. "However, due to the slow overall market adoption of the service, we are instead focusing our efforts on products and solutions more capable of supporting long-standing growth within this evolving market."

Google also said that its service had not scaled as quickly as it had hoped. Here is our earlier story on Google PowerMeter.

The free service allowed people to track their home energy usage via the Web. Microsoft said it will shut down on May 31, 2012. Microsoft had partnered with Seattle City Light so users could download their billing history and electricity usage.

A day earlier, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said that Microsoft will focus on fewer, bigger projects. "The day and age of idle, smaller things is a little bit behind us," he said Wednesday at a speech to the Rotary Club of Seattle.

A year ago, Microsoft partnered with Blue Line Innovations to build a home-energy monitor that connected to the power meter and tracked energy usage online via WiFi. It was called a PowerCost Monitor and was available for $249. Here is our earlier story on the Hohm device.

Microsoft said then that it was the first of more devices Microsoft would help develop to help people reduce energy and connect more appliances to the Microsoft cloud.

Here is a short take on what Ballmer said about focusing on fewer projects, and the story on his full speech.