exo : blah

Ok, so they are not impressed which is fine. As other people have pointed out the news boils down to google have a Jabber server. What makes me sigh are some of Ars Technica's reasons for not liking the client: "Want little emoticons? Skins? Go bug somebody else!"

Ah yes, skins and emoticons. Quite the most vital aspects of any IM client. Utterly essential to your ability to chat with your friends. Or alternately an excellent way to clutter up the interface of an application with unnecessary crap that has no real function.

The rest of their points seem pretty valid though.