SiCortex, which wanted to sell energy efficient high performance computers to scientists, financial modelers and other big time users, has called it quits, according to HPC Wire. Most of the employees have been laid off and the company is trying to figure out how to sell its assets. More from HPC:

"According to the source, the course of action was initiated when one of the five venture capital firms behind SiCortex pulled out because of a lack of available funds. The other four then followed suit. The five firms that had funded SiCortex were Chevron Technology Ventures, Flagship Ventures, JK&B Capital, Polaris Venture Partners, and Prism VentureWorks. They had previously provided SiCortex with $42 million in funding, most recently in a Series B round in 2006."

A number of companies have recently radically altered their business plans or shut down. Some of the more noteworthy:

• Optisolar, which had raised $322 million before selling off most of its remaining assets to First Solar.

• SVSolar, which banked on the continuing rise in silicon prices.

• Michelle Kaufmann Designs, which wanted to make modular homes.

The strange, and a little scary, part of SiCortex's demise is that it fits the profile of the kind of companies investors say they want: low-capital intensity companies that don't need factories that are aiming at reducing power consumption. The ones listed above all had factories.

On the other hand, I covered servers for years and can tell you that it's a tough place for any startup to survive. Back in the early 2000s, several companies came out of the woodwork touting blade servers. They pretty much all went away. IBM and HP just came out with blades of their own.

So this may not be a total commentary on the green industry.