Can you upgrade to vSphere 6.5 when using a vSphere Enterprise license?

Update November, 30th 2016: Read my update below and also check visitor comments to get a full overview of what’s happening.

Update December, 19th 2016: I’ve added a few links to KB articles and the product lifecycle support document that contain some additional info.

A couple of days ago, VMware vSphere 6.5 became general available. vSphere 6.5 brings a lot new interesting features that are summarised in the various blog posts and also in this whitepaper.

One question that popped up to me and was not clearly answered is: Can you upgrade to vSphere 6.5 when using a vSphere Enterprise license? As you probably know, the Enterprise license was discontinued earlier this year. Although I cannot find any official information on this, there are two sources that give some additional information:

In this reddit post you can read the answer on a question that was asked about this at the support pages:

vSphere 6.5 is a minor upgrade hence, existing customers may download the product software from the My VMware Portal and use the same licenses. Please note the vSphere 6.0 license key can be used with ESXi installed with vSphere 6.5 software. We at the licensing team are not aware of the general availability of the vSphere 6.5, however, upon product launch, you may download the product from your portal.
After a quick look at the my.vmware.com portal I’ve learned you can download the Enterprise version of vSphere 6.5:

So, it looks that customers that an Enterprise license can just go to the portal, download vSphere 6.5 and upgrade. However, some of the new 6.5 features are part of the Enterprise Plus and are not available to Enterprise customers. Learn more about these differences here.

I expect that the next major release (vSphere 7.0?), the Enterprise option will be discontinued. Notice that there’s still a promotion available to upgrade to Enterprise Plus license with a 50% discount. This promotion runs until December 26th, so don’t wait to long to take advantage of this offer! You can contact me if you need additional info.

Update November 30th, 2016: Unfortunately there’s still no official statement from VMware about running vSphere 6.5 with an Enterprise license. It looks that the download option for vSphere 6.5 Enterprise is removed from my.vmware.com. However, it seems that you can just download vSphere 6.5 Standard edition and enter your Enterprise license key.

I recommend to contact your local VMware representative and ask for an official statement if you’re running vSphere Enterprise. Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. I also asked our local VMware office for more information on this topic. If I have any official statement I will share it here.