Deadlocks In Sql Server

Hi
I'm having a problem with deadlocks in a table in SQL server when
trying to update it through Biztalk 2004. There is no problem when I
use the same Biztalk solution to update a similar dummy table, but
when I try updating the original table in the production database,
some transactions are updated successfully whereas others become the
victim of the deadlock (Transaction (Process ID 185) was deadlocked on
lock resources with another process and has been chosen as the
deadlock victim. Rerun the transaction). The table that is updated is
also being used by another application that just selects rows from it.

As a workaround, I have used recursion in the code that updates the
table. The function is put through a recursive loop whenever the
deadlock exception(#1205) is caught. It keeps on trying to update the
table until the updation is successful or another exception (not the
deadlock one) is caught. i.e.


Bool Update_IVR(string amount, string customer_id)
{
Try
{
//updation code
}
}
Catch (exception ex)
{
If( ex.message == deadlock message)
{
Bool succ =Update_IVR (amount, customer_id) //recursion
Return succ;
}
Else //error handling code
}

After introducing this code, the problem did not occur for the next
13000 transactions. Then I got the error again four times along with a
timeout error (Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to
completion of the operation or the server is not responding). However
for the next 17000 transactions (to date) this error has not showed
up.

Thanks

Hasan