Shares of many of those companies climbed Friday as the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed up by 27.13 points at 2,789.80. The Dow Industrials closed up by 42.61, to 12,479.73, and the S&P 500 closed up by 7.27 to 1,316.14.

After getting battered by economic worries in May and for most of June, computer stocks fell below the year's opening levels. Although an end-of-the-quarter rally helped get July off to a strong start, the markets have nevertheless been on a roller-coaster ride.

But with this week's surge, helped along by Google, computer stocks on the Nasdaq are now up by more than 2 percent for the year. The tech/media/telecom sector of the New York Stock Exchange is also up by about 2 percent for the year.

On Friday, IT bellwethers led the market up. Microsoft closed up by $0.31 to $26.78; IBM closed up by $1.31 to $175.54; Amazon was up $2.49 to $212.87; and Google was up $68.68 to $597.62. Even some of the chip and hardware stocks rose: Intel gained $0.10 to hit $22.37 and Dell rose $0.28 to $16.97.

Weakness in consumer spending has hit the hardware sector, raising concerns about uptake of new PCs. Strong spending on PCs last year, in the wake of the recession, also makes year-to-year increases more difficult to achieve than usual, IDC noted.