A team of ex-Nokia employees has released the first handset running on a new smartphone operating system.
The Jolla phone (pronounced Yol-la) runs on an open source operating system called Sailfish, which can still conveniently run some Android apps.
The company has paired with a major Finnish network, and hopes to set up a similar deal with a UK operator.
Industry analysts said Jolla faced a challenge in taking on a market dominated by Google and Apple. The Firefox OS handsets are already proving difficult to push for Firefox, some critics have said.
Just 450 Jolla phones will be available at launch on Wednesday evening, with the majority going to customers who have pre-ordered the device.
The platform was originally called MeeGo, but was dumped in 2011 in favour of the company adopting the Windows Phone system.
Nokia released just one handset running the software, the N9-00.
Antti Saarnio, chairman and co-founder of Jolla, told the BBC that MeeGo, now called Sailfish, had not been given enough chance to succeed.
"Everybody felt so strongly that they wanted to continue," he said.
Large parts of the Sailfish code were open-source, which meant anyone could expand and adapt the platform, Mr Dillon said.
"We are ramping up our Jolla community right now.
"There’s already a Sailfish website so that developers can come and contribute."
The smartphone market is currently dominated by Google’s Android software, with Apple iOS accounting for just 13% of the share, according to CCS Insight in figures relating to July to September 2013 sales. Blackberry, Microsoft and Mozilla make up the rest of the numbers.
