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Apple is facing perhaps its toughest few months since it became the recognised global leader in the digital music player and music downloads market. Several events over the past few weeks have put pressure on the company and ensured that the next six to nine months will be crucial, not just for the iPod and iTunes, but for the company as a whole.

The importance of the iPod to Apple's bottom line was illustrated earlier this month when an analyst's prediction of a delay to the next version of the iPod nano and to the 'proper' video iPod caused a 2.5% drop in Apple's share price. That delay is believed to have been caused by a number of technical factors including Apple's switch from Portal Player to Samsung for its microchips and the battery life in the video iPod.

However, these are not the only problems to beset the iPod. A report in Variety magazine in June suggested that while Apple is well down the road to negotiating a deal to make movie downloads available on iTunes, there is still some way to go. Apple, and CEO Steve Jobs, apparently want a similar, fixed price, model to the one in place for music downloads. Movie studios, keen to learn from the mistakes of record companies, some of whom would rather have variable pricing for music, aren't keen. They want the ability to set the price according to their own needs. It seems Apple may not get its own way this time.

Then there's the thorny issue of interoperability. The French Government stopped short of insisting that Apple open its digital rights management technology, Fairplay, to other digital music player manufacturers,

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but it did make the loophole sufficiently bureaucratic to give Apple reason to decide revenues from its French store are not worth the hassle. That would be a shame for French iPod owners, but no big deal for Apple, which has a relatively small share of the market in France. However, if the French legislation becomes a template for other European countries, or even the EU, Apple could yet find itself compelled to license Fairplay or face losing its presence in Europe altogether. That would be a blow, not just to Apple's bottom line, but to its position as the dominant supplier of downloadable music in the world and the negotiating strength that brings with it.

As if all that weren't enough, there comes news of Microsoft's rumored 'iPod killer', apparently dubbed 'Zune.' Microsoft has called reports that it's working on such a player, 'speculation' but, significantly, stopped short of denying them completely. That could just be mischievousness on its part, or it could be because the reports are true. The details that have emerged suggest Microsoft will use the Xbox brand to market the player, and that it will connect to wifi networks - potentially allowing it to download tracks directly from the Internet, without the need for a Mac or PC. The images that have surfaced on Engadget (engadget.com) don't look like anything that Apple, or even Creative, needs to worry about, but Microsoft has a track record of this sort of thing: it cloned the Mac OS with Windows and cleaned up, and it introduced the Xbox into a market where Sega and Nintendo were finding it difficult, impossible in Sega's case, to compete with Sony, and took a large chunk of it. If, as is reported, Xbox guru J Allard is behind Zune, it will be a credible entrant into the market.

It would be easy to dismiss a Microsoft media player as just another iPod competitor, but if there is one company that can seriously threaten the dominance of the Apple player, it is its old rival in Redmond. It has the know how, the budget and the contacts to put together a closed platform in the iPod/iTunes mould that will give Tony Fadell and his iPod team some sleepless nights.