[frazell]

I don't work for HTC or UTStarcom so my thoughts are just guesses... With that disclaimer out of the way...

Making cell phones is a very relationship intensive business. Every carrier wants a very close relationship with the handset makers so the phones are tested and modified to exactly what they want on their networks or works. HTC only maintains that relationship with their GSM carriers. Probably because GSM is the larger world market so they make their devices for GSM and employ GSM people to marry those carriers.

UTStarcom then works closely with the CDMA carriers which are primarily in North America (Canadian CDMA devices from HTC are also UTStarcom). This gives HTC the freedom of dealing only with UTStarcom keeping their costs down. It also allows the CDMA carriers to feel closer to the ODM as they work directly with UTStarcom.

With that in mind you can understand the CDMA devices as being manufactured by HTC and designed by HTC as well (since the CDMA is minor adaptations of the GSM variants), but sold and supported by UTStarcom. The closest we can get to this (with an example that we all know of) is the relationship between Microsoft and PC OEMs.

Hopefully that makes sense... Although it is all just speculation on my part.