IT professionals are mad as hell about Nicholas Carr's new book, which predicts the demise of the corporate IT department and its replacement by utility computing.

Network World's Web site has been flooded with comments from IT professionals since Monday, when it published a review of Carr's latest book, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google.

"This article proves that Nicholas Carr can still get a book published regardless…of his extreme lack of knowledge of logic, business, economics and information technology," says one anonymous writer, who calls Carr "a talentless hack with an English Lit degree.''

Another anonymous commenter says Carr is "an author screaming for attention and not someone versed and experienced in IT. He's just a small child crying out for someone to look at him. It's OK, we'll entertain you by at least reacting to your latest ponderings."

The comments -- more than 50 in all -- are not your typical Internet rants and raves. Instead, they are mostly detailed, well-articulated arguments about why companies will continue to need their own corporate IT departments to secure customer data, provide end-user support, upgrade network infrastructure and deploy custom business applications.

The controversy surrounding Carr's new book is likely to continue, as Network World hosts an online chat with the author on Thursday, Jan. 10 from 2 to 3 p.m. EST. The transcript of that chat will be available by Friday, Jan. 11.

The reader-submitted comments are running 8 to 1 against Carr's premise that IT departments will have little work left to do once business computing moves out of corporate-run data centers into utility computing facilities.

"I don't believe you're going to see this large transformation as Carr predicts," says one anonymous commenter. "Companies have invested hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, into infrastructure for their business. They are going to just throw it all away? I highly doubt that…Many companies, like my own, will absolutely never trust their data to a 'utility computing solution' aka, Google….Downsizing, yes, IT department's dying off, no I don't really think so."

"I've worked for a number of organizations who thought outsourcing IT was the key to success, and they universally failed," says a reader who identifies himself as Andrew van der Stock. "Our devices and styles of computing will change (see Salesforce.com, etc.), but the need to centrally manage a number of devices that the company owns will not go away."