I wrote a stored procedure to insert a record. I added "Begin Transaction" just above the Insert Query and execute the query. I noticed that another application that was showing a web page with records from the same table, hanged by the time the insert completed.

Why Begin Transaction locks the entire table? **Writers should not block Readers.** It should be ON by default.

I am using SQL-Server 2005 Express. I also want to know how Oracle and MySQL handles the same situation.