I've seen mixed reviews on the Xoom and the only people who seem to really praise it as being equal with the iPad are the Android fanboys.
Xoom is also 800$ compared to a 500$ starting point for the iPad 2, even cheaper for iPad 1, and there aren't nearly as many games/apps/etc out for the Xoom as there are for iPad. I'm by no means an Apple fanboy and I love me some Android, but right now, the only way to justify a Xoom over iPad is if you are a legitimate Android freak and absolutely loathe Apple. The Xoom, as jms mentioned, is way more flexible/customizable than the iPad, which is nice, but not 300$ more "nice".