Just to let others know...I posted this on the TBC Facebook page and got the following reply. I didn't see any mention of the 'not compatible with earlier versions' issue when installing but I'm sure it was in there somewhere.
Tyson Glahe posted to Trimble Business Center
October 3 at 11:53am ·
"I'm running TBC v3.03 (64 bit) and it seems that my projects cannot be opened in earlier versions of TBC, such as v2.8 and v2.9. Are they not compatible once you cross over to v3.0+?"
Trimble Business Center "Tyson - At this point TBC is not backward compatible."
Yea, you have to export back to an earlier version. You also have to be careful not to update every time it tells you there is an update available unless you are sure you are within their warranty. Otherwise you have to download and re-install the earlier version.