Turns out it was a tough decade for tech companies. First the bubble they helped create burst and took the rest of the economy down with them; now the credit markets have sunk them in return – with two notable exceptions.

I’ll admit that this chart would be more readable if it had been a more competitive field. But isn’t that kind of the point? While everyone else was mucking around trying to recover from the mistakes of the late nineties, two truly innovative companies – Apple and Google – distinguished themselves in spectacular fashion. Granted, Google didn’t join the party until 2004 and benefits from a severely undervalued IPO, but even taking that into consideration, their current stock price of $US622 is 20 times that of Microsoft. No matter what kind of dividend Ballmer hands out, that’s an enormous – and telling – gap.

That’s the big picture. But I’m curious as to what you guys see in the details, too. A stock can pop on a rumour and drop on a dime. What’s behind some of the peaks and valleys we see here? [Chart via Google]