The announcement of the iMac in 1998 was a source of controversy and anticipation among commentators, Mac fans, and detractors. Opinions were divided over Apple's drastic changes to the Macintosh hardware. At the time, Apple had suffered a series of setbacks as consumers increasingly opted for Wintel machines instead of Apple's Performa models. Many in the industry thought that "beleaguered Apple" would soon be forced to start selling computers with a custom interface built on top of one or more potential operating system bases, such as Taligent, Solaris, or Windows NT.