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Alienware spokeswoman Winnie Wong confirmed the memo as authentic, but said she could not say how many employees would be affected. The Lewis memo indicated that the changes, including the layoffs, would be completed by the end of Dell's third fiscal quarter, which ends Oct. 31.

For Alienware, however, the moves are somewhat like pruning for future growth, as the company expands the countries it plans to serve by about a factor of seven. With the launch of Alienware's next-generation "Quicksilver" notebook product, Alienware's products will appear in 35 countries supporting 17 languages by February 2010, Lewis added, including the Nordics, Spain, Italy, Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea, and parts of the Middle East, South America, and Latin America, including Brazil.

Both Alienware's Lewis and Wong indicated that the layoffs would come as a natural consequence of expansion. "This is obviously putting two teams together into one unbeatable team," Wong said. "It's [serving] 35 countries versus 6 countries; we previously wouldn't be able to do it with the existing infrastructure."