Six Apart – company co-founders Ben and Mena Trott were born six days apart in September 1977. In 2011, the company was taken over by Infocom, a Japanese IT company. Skanska – Swedish construction company named from Aktiebolaget Skånska Cementgjuteriet (Scania Cement Casting Ltd) SKF – from Svenska Kullagerfabriken AB (Swedish ball bearing factory) founded in 1907; see also Volvo Skoda Auto – car company was founded in 1895 and originally named Laurin & Klement after its founders, Vaclav Laurin and Vaclav Klement. It was taken over by Škoda Works, an industrial conglomerate, in 1924, and adopted the Škoda name from Emil Škoda. Škoda Auto was split off after World War II and is now part of Volkswagen. Skype – original concept for the name was Sky-Peer-to-Peer, which morphed into Skyper, then Skype. The company was taken over by Microsoft in May 2011. Smart – Swatch + Mercedes + Art Smeg, Smalterie Metallurgiche Emiliane Guastalla (metal enamelling of Guastalla, Emilia) Smilebit – former Sega development studio named from what they hope to make you do (smile), and the smallest unit of computer information (bit). The company developed Jet Set Radio. SNK – Shin Nihon Kikaku, Japanese for "Plans for a New Japan" Sokos – from SOK, an abbreviation for "Suomen Osuuskauppojen Keskuskunta" (Central association for Finnish co-operatives) but with "-os" added to the end to make it a palindrome and thus sound nicer. Sony – from the Latin word "sonus" meaning sound, and "sonny", a slang word used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster, "since we were sonny boys working in sound and vision", said Akio Morita. The company was founded as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo KK (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation) in 1946, and changed its name to Sony in 1958. Sony was chosen as it could be pronounced easily in many languages. Sorcim – "Micros" backwards. Sorcim was the original publisher of the SuperCalc spreadsheet in 1980. It was taken over by Computer Associates. SPAR – originally DE SPAR, from Door Eendrachtig Samenwerken Profiteren Allen Regelmatig (Dutch, meaning "All will benefit from united co-operation"). "De spar" in Dutch translates as "the fir tree", hence the fir tree logo. As the company expanded across Europe, the name was shortened by dropping the article, "DE". SpaceX – short for Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Sperry – company founded by Elmer Ambrose Sperry (1860–1930), originally as Sperry Gyroscope Company. Sperry took over