Letter from the Producer Vi

[Abriael]

My bad, it was on Eorzeapedia:

Q. At the Ebisu event back in September we saw what looked like group crafting – where a group appeared to jointly craft a cake. What can you tell us about that?

A. Yoshida-san indicated that he wants to keep developing this system, but its priority is still to be decided. He went on to joke that he needs to address how the cake would be used before addressing how the cake was made.

http://www.eorzeapedia.com/2011/03/0...naoki-yoshida/

The same interview also gives a bit of detail about grand/public companies.

Q. The third Producer’s Letter also mentioned the addition of “public company quests.” What can you tell us about this feature?

A. Yoshida-san was not ready to reveal details on this system yet, except to say that public companies will be one of the most important aspects of the game and will play a critical role regarding the threats to Eorzea. He indicated that more information will be announced at the end of March

Also from ZAM

ZAM: Players have been excited about the Company system as well. Can you give us any more details on Companies and how they will affect the current Linkshell system?

Yoshida: In some aspect, the Company system will have aspects that are similar to and can link with that Linkshell community. But it's also going to be something larger. It's going to be more of a global type of community on a larger scale. I can't really say much more than that. I can tell you that toward the end of March there will be revealing stuff coming up on the Lodestone.

Before I became producer/director, in the old 1.2 patch notes it mentioned that we will be releasing player Companies. The thing is, we realized that we could bring out player Companies, but then if there's nothing for the Companies to do there wouldn't be any reason to bring it out. We decided to reverse that and first make sure that there's going to be content and stuff for the Companies to do before releasing the Companies. The whole coming danger that's approaching Eorzea is going to play a big part in something for the Companies to do.

http://ffxiv.zam.com/story.html?story=25503

Those are the only facts we know for now about public companies. Everything else is wild speculation.