Jim Gaynor

Jim Gaynor

Analyst

Jim analyzes and writes about Teams and other Microsoft services for collaboration and unified communication, Windows Server and related OSs, and enterprise computing infrastructure. He has a wide-ranging mix of technology experience, and has been writing about the field on and off since since the early 1990s.

Before joining Directions on Microsoft, Jim managed and taught academic and research technology at University of Washington and The Ohio State University. He also led IT operations management for a global civil engineering firm and, more recently, was technical producer of a live service game based on the popular Magic: The Gathering card game.

Jim holds a B.A. with graduate studies in philosophy and a minor in computer science from The Ohio State University.

Latest Content by Jim Gaynor

  Analyst Report
September 11, 2026 · by Jim Gaynor
Planner Subscription Strategy for Project Online Retirement Project Online will be retired effective Oct.1, 2026, leaving Planner as Microsoft’s sole hosted project management service.
  Roadmap
September 7, 2026 · by Jim Gaynor
Planner Add-on Subscription Packaging Chart shows the project management capabilities delivered as part of the Microsoft 365 suites, and which features are added by...
  Roadmap
September 2, 2026 · by Jim Gaynor
Azure Kubernetes Service Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Microsoft’s flagship Kubernetes (often abbreviated as “K8s”) offering, provides orchestration (deployment, provisioning, and automation) and management...
  Roadmap
August 30, 2026 · by Jim Gaynor
Container Services in Azure In addition to the company’s flagship Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Microsoft offers services that exist to support or simplify deployment...
  Roadmap
August 30, 2026 · by Jim Gaynor
Azure Container Storage Azure Container Storage (ACS) is a volume management and provisioning service for deploying persistent storage to containers in Azure Kubernetes...
  Roadmap
August 25, 2026 · by Jim Gaynor
Azure Local Roadmap for Azure Local, Microsoft's host OS based on Windows Server for hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), licensed via subscription as an...
  Roadmap
August 25, 2026 · by Jim Gaynor
Kubernetes Fleet Manager Kubernetes Fleet Manager is an Azure-hosted service for managing numerous Kubernetes clusters, including Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters and Azure...
  Roadmap
August 22, 2026 · by Jim Gaynor
Azure Arc Azure Arc is a set of capabilities enabling Azure to work with deployments hosted outside of Azure, and it includes...
  Roadmap
August 21, 2026 · by Jim Gaynor
Windows Server NTLM will be disabled by default in the next version of Windows, although customers will be able to apply policy...
  Roadmap
August 20, 2026 · by Jim Gaynor
Azure VMware Solution Broadcom's latest licensing changes will increase costs for AVS customers, even those with long-term reserved instances.