Final answer:
The statement is false; an Azure service in general availability is made available to all Azure customers, signifying that it is ready for production use.
Step-by-step explanation:
The statement that an Azure service in general availability is released to a subset of Azure customers is false. When Microsoft releases an Azure service in general availability, it means the service is available to all Azure customers. The purpose of this stage is to ensure that it is fully functional, reliable, and backed by Microsoft's Service Level Agreement for all users, without any restrictions to a specific group of customers. Before reaching general availability, a service might go through various stages, including private preview and public preview, where it is indeed available to only a select group of customers to test and provide feedback. However, the crucial general availability stage means the service is ready for production use on a wide scale.