VMware has quietly ceased selling its distributed firewall product designed for SmartNICs (specialised network cards with embedded processors) after failing to generate customer demand despite substantial development efforts. SmartNICs, used by hyperscale cloud operators to offload security and networking functions, promised to free up main CPU cores for customer workloads—an approach VMware attempted to bring to on-premises data centres when it was independent. However, customers expressed interest without committing to purchase, whilst improvements in conventional network interface cards simultaneously eroded the SmartNIC's competitive advantage, making it difficult to justify continued development investment.

VMware successfully implemented its hypervisor and NSX firewall on SmartNICs from AMD and Nvidia, though Intel hardware proved problematic owing to microcode-level complexities. The company's Distributed Services Engine, which enables SmartNIC integration with its Cloud Foundation suite, remains in the product and continues receiving support. VMware is exploring alternative acceleration approaches, including direct offloading via ConnectX-7 technology, and maintains partnerships with Nvidia and AMD that could revive SmartNIC work in future initiatives—particularly given that many SmartNIC processors use the Arm architecture, potentially leveraging VMware's developing ESX for Arm platform.