Other IM programs don't require that--users of AOL Instant Messenger, for instance, might have a totally differentIM name than their e-mail address, or might not even have an AOL account at all.
Although many observers predict that AOL would try to bring the ICQ users onto the IM platform, a company spokeswoman acknowledged that the two sets of users are very different and said the company does not plan to force one group to migrate from one system to the other.