Apple's iPod digital media device will come under increased pressure from competitors as early as this Christmas season, a Microsoft executive said in a published report Thursday.

In an interview with Bloomberg News, Erik Huggers, head of Microsoft's Digital Media Division, said this fall "there is going to be a number of devices that get close to competing with Apple's iPod."

"There is going to be a whole lineup of products that can compete with Apple in industrial design, usability, functionality and features," he said, naming devices that will bear Microsoft technology from labels such as Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics and Creative Technology.

Now that Apple has single-handedly taken the market, all the world's consumer electronics makers are zooming in on it," Mr. Huggers said. "They are just not going to let them get away with it. The first quarter of 2006 is going to get very interesting."

Microsoft is helping electronics makers "build world-class devices, that really work well, with great industrial design, with lots of content available, with great software on the PC to make it all work together," Mr. Huggers commented.

But the threat might not be so easy to pull off successfully, according to Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research.

"It's going to take a lot to dethrone Apple. Apple won't sit on its laurels and I expect we'll see another iteration of the iPod for the holiday," said Mr. Gartenberg. "Unless Microsoft is really willing to spend the time and effort to get behind a player or a select group of players, it's not going to happen."

At the moment, Apple holds a 75% share of the U.S. market for digital media devices, according to IDC.