Though not traded on major U.S. exchanges, Lenovo and Acer had good news for the hardware market, which has been in dire need of a boost this year.

Chinese PC maker that profit for the quarter ended June 30 grew by 30 percent year-over-year to $141 million, while revenue grew 35 percent to $8 billion. The company has surpassed Dell to become the number two PC maker in the world and is on track at its current growth rate to surpass Hewlett-Packard next year. At the end of the second quarter, Lenovo had a 14.9 percent share of the units shipped in the PC market, while Hewlett-Packard had a 15.5 percent share, according to research firm IDC.

On its part, Taiwanese PC maker that for the quarter ended on June 30, profit rose 100 percent year over year to reach NT$56 million (US$1.87 million) while sales increased a healthy 8.3 percent to NT$110.6 billion.

Acer also issued a note of caution, however, as CEO J.T. Wang said during an earnings call that revenue will remain flat as the company transitions toward launching Windows 8 devices in October. Wang did not sound overly optimistic about the new release of Windows, saying, "We are still waiting for the signal of the consumers' enthusiasm."

Despite the various words of caution from IT leaders, tech stocks continued their recent upward trend this week, rising Friday afternoon by 5.66 points on the Nasdaq Computer Stock Index to 1679.30. Part of the reason for the rise in tech shares is general economic sentiment, which is boosting all major U.S. stock indexes -- the Dow Jones Industrial Average, for example, edged up 9.67 points Friday afternoon to 13259.59, continuing a general upward trend. The S&P 500 index was closing in on a high for the year.