Have you tried Oracle, which doesn't exhibit, say SELECT/UPDATE deadlocks because of row versioning? Thankfully, there is now row versioning in MSS. The point being is that, yes an application must be coded to handled deadlocks it expects *where* it expects them, but MSS is causing an egregious number of unexpected deadlocks, and I wonder if that's due to page locking and/or lock escalation policies. What's your experience with Oracle and how does it compare with MSS when it comes to unexpected deadlocks?